Grounded in Color: Julia Bonanno's Painting Process

The Bachelor of Arts (BA) Senior Studio is offered each year to Stamps BA students in their final year of study. In the class, students and instructors combine individual studio work with a collaborative project: the production of a fully self-directed show from start to finish, emphasizing the skills and practices associated with producing professional exhibitions. This year, students under the direction of Professor Nick Tobier and GSI Michaela Nichelle also invested time in getting to know one another, conducting a series of peer-to-peer interviews to learn more about the process, inspirations, and practice of their classmates. Over the next few months, we’re reprinting some of these interviews, which were combined into a collection featuring studio portraits by Urvi Joshi (BA ​’25) and a cover by Riley Huhta (BA ​’26).

Julia Bonanno

Interviewed by Margherita Hill

Hill: This studio gives us the opportunity to expand on ideas from other projects to make something meaningful. What artists/​inspirations lead you to where you are at now with your project?

Bonanno: This project was initially an expansion of a past project that I felt I could have dove deeper into, but I think it transformed into its own new entity. The previous project included experimenting with some combining elements of my analog writing journal with graphic elements and photography. It captured different things that I love such as nature, layering mediums, and color. These characteristics definitely inspired and translated into this painting series. My outside inspiration for my work comes from both painters that I admire, but also music, literature, nature, and feelings. Artists I admire for their landscape painting style and use of color are Brett Allen Johnson, Tracy Helgelson, and Michael Chamberlain. Music is an important part of my process, because it allows me to tap into the emotions I hope to visually display — peace, awe, nostalgia, etc. Bön Iver, Mt. Joy, The Rolling stones are some that come to mind, and I also admire these artists’ album cover design. I found myself being inspired throughout the semester by various artists I hadn’t known of before for small details that I resonated with — such as using raw materials, playing with neon color palettes, use of texture. This ultimately aligned with and contributed to my collage style of painting, as I cherry-picked small tidbits of style that I felt called to.

You began collaging digitally before painting, what went into making these compositions? What were you looking for?

Making my digital collage sketches was definitely the most challenging and experimental part of this whole process. I would say my main focus was always color. I picked two colors that I wanted to work that design around, and then found secondary colors and assigned textures and visuals that aligned. I was looking for compositions that evoked equal parts peacefulness and aliveness. I brought in bright colors to amplify the sense of awe, wonder, and excitement that I feel when in nature. But I also wanted the pieces to be grounding and rooted in natural textures and authentic brush strokes. I compiled countless photos, snippets of texture, color samples, and everything in between to make my sketches. Each painting had upwards of twenty iterations before I started painting — different compositions of the ​‘tiles,’ different color palettes, different elements of nature. But overall, I was looking for a feeling, more than anything visually.

When did you know it was time to stop refining and start painting?

For all three paintings, I didn’t feel a definitive, ​‘ready’ feeling to start painting. But I knew the process wouldn’t continue digitally. I find myself so much more in tune with how a piece should look when it is physically in front of me. A lot of the questions I had while digitally sketching my ideas were answered when I was physically mixing paint colors, and arranging components in front of me. My favorite part about painting as a medium is actually its unforgiveness. While existing in a digital sphere where it is so easy to constantly edit and restart projects, and hyper-focus on details, I value the annoyance of changing things while painting. When there was an element I was unhappy with, I forced myself to sit with it for days or weeks even, knowing that if I were to start over, it would require more paint, mess on my canvas, and possibly no improvement. Since I was really interested in playing with color, however, I would say I felt the most confidence to move from screen to paint once I had nailed down the color palette. A lot of the textures and subject matter came as I was painting.

In critique we talked a bit about narrative vs aesthetic choices, where did you end up with this process? Would you describe your works as more narrative or aesthetic? Go deeper on what those mean to you.

This question is interesting, because I think I would have answered very differently at the beginning of my process than I would answer now. I had this perception that because my subject matter and content focus wasn’t ​“deep,” or related to a social issue or human phenomenon, that it was therefore purely aesthetic. I would say now that my greatest lesson of this project was that this isn’t necessarily true. While yes, most of my process was driven aesthetically, there was a whole layer below that of why I was drawn to certain aesthetics. My goal as an artist is consistently to bring a feeling of grounding to those viewing. I am passionate about the power of the earth’s energy to keep us rooted to ourselves and connected to others in such a modern, chaotic world. In my personal experience, art keeps me grounded for reasons that could be chalked up to ​‘aesthetic’ but are likely much deeper. I like music because of how it sounds, sometimes more than because of the lyrics. I often like artwork because of the colors and textures more than the subject matter, and sometimes I like a book because of the setting and writing style more than the plot. But I still think there is still so much power in appreciating art in this way. Now, I don’t think there need be such a distinction between if my work is narrative or aesthetic. My hope is that for some viewers of my work, they are transported into new places, emotions, or experiences. While this may simply be from the aesthetics of my paintings, and less of the subject matter, I think any feelings evoked from art are significant.

Path Forward, the 2025 Stamps BA Senior Studio Exhibition, was on view at Stamps Gallery from December 3 – 13, 2025. The exhibition worked to weave meditations on nature, the inner and outer workings of our human bodies from the functional to the phenomenal, the paces of daily lives whether reading or rushing, in friendship or in family and exploring memories of real and imagined pasts as they intersect with the here and now. Featuring work in experimental video, fashion, painting, illustration and sculpture, Path Forward postulates stepping stones for near and possible futures.