Julia Solano

watercolor plein air painter, risograph printmaker, and bamboo sculpture artist from Oakland, California — of Lokano and Bisayan descent.

painting for me is a meditation. it gives me an opportunity to sit with the land and really listen, just observe what she has to say. it’s hours of really just sitting with the land and witnessing, looking at the different colors, observing the different textures — and painting them one at a time.

I started painting in middle school. it was a way of stilling my really active mind and allowing me to be more present. it’s been a really important grounding practice for myself.

I studied engineering and architecture at UC Berkeley, where I made my own major to study design through both disciplines. I cofounded a humanitarian AI startup doing work with nonprofits and refugees in Jordan and Greece — and poured my heart and soul into that until I burned out.

after that, I stumbled into bamboo building, which feels very ancestral — connecting with this material that both of my grandparents have dealt with, but reclaiming it in a different way. I’ve spent the past decade living in communes and experimental cities, worked in an exploration and future sensing lab, and built bamboo and earth installations for festivals and land-based healing projects around the world — Wonderfruit in Thailand, Lightning in a Bottle, Burning Man, South by Southwest.

a lot of my art is art for convening. bringing people together.

what I am offering is a space to witness — my art, my relationship with place, and a place for you to share your own.

I’m not inviting you into a print club. I’m inviting you into a world. a way of moving through the world. a way of remembering place. of honoring it. of choosing hope — not through bypassing, not through dissociation — but by choosing to cherish the land anyway.

I do this because I love the land.