Painting for me is a passion, a fascinating process of seeing, which alters the vision of things. The everyday becomes special, unique, unknown. What is seen, is never what is painted, yet the painting becomes a new reality. When somebody inquires "How long did it take you to paint this picture?" - I answer it, but to myself I think : "How long? My entire life", it is a result of a lifelong journey into self discovery.

I was born in the southern Russia. Perhaps the place where I grew up, which was full of light, sun, warmth, has influenced my perception and sense of color. I feel that my creativity has been largely formed by the accumulated from the childhood images of beauty in nature and life.

I have liked drawing and painting for as long as I can remember myself. Since my childhood, painting for me is always a door to another new world. You know where to go, but you only have a vague idea of what you will find there. This discovery is always an absorbing and exciting experience for me. Watercolors were my first love, but presently I work mostly with oil, because it allows me to create a more intricate volumetric texture. It is a well-known saying among artists that it is not important what you paint, but rather how you do that. My subjects are diverse: still-lives, portraits, landscapes, cityscapes. In each of them, I focus on the idea and unusual composition that conveys the mood and creates a fresh look at the subject. I strive to use vibrant but precise colors to enhance the emotional message of my paintings. It is hard to convey the exhilaration when these elements come together on canvas, and you become a witness of a transformation from a white sheet into a new world.

The great pieces of art are both timeless and contemporary. My paintings combine the changing particularities of our modern experiences with the expressions of eternal values, beauty, aspirations and humanity, which I hope will lift the spirits and delight the eyes of those seeing them for many years to come.

Julia Klimova