Yulia Bas's powerful portraits reflect transformation, evolution and the beauty of imperfection. In each painting, empty spaces become eloquent, as faces remain unfinished and details are obscured. Yulia's brush strokes and blanks pose questions on identity, change and self-doubt.
Working in gesso, crushed paper, cork, acrylics and oils, her brushwork is both lifelike and abstract, rude in its texture and vivid in its accuracy. Each detail carries her own anxieties as well as that of her subject; shadows suggesting traumas, tension and misconceptions, light indicating clarity, infinite possibilities, power and peace.
For Yulia, portraiture is a direct reflection of personality – she makes connections between background texture and subconscious settings and energy. Detailed realism coexists with sketchy, bold brush strokes and unapologetic white spots of background. Yulia's portraits capture the subjects in a specific moment, aware that they will never be the same person as in that moment again. And she will never be the same artist. As we experience, and are influenced by, changes around us and inside us, our identity evolves and the shadows and light, both real and imagined, adjust too.
BIO
Born in Moscow, Russia in 1986, Yulia's eclectic artistic journey began at a very early age. From studying in an art school with a teacher dedicated to old Russian academicism as a child, she went on to complete a degree in interior design and architecture.
Over the past decade she has established a successful yacht design studio with her partner, relocating to Barcelona and immersing herself in this unique unaccustomed realm.
After a decade dedicated to yacht design, Yulia felt a longing to return to the canvas once again in 2017.
In many ways an artist reborn, her work harnesses her feelings of vulnerability, her acute awareness of her shifting identity. As she undergoes a metamorphosis of self, so too do her subjects through her honest, incomplete rendering.
Currently based in Barcelona, Spain.
SOLO SHOWS:
February 2020 Galerie LeRoyer / Montreal, Canada / Focus exhibition Yulia Bas
September 2019 JLS gallery / Mexico City, Mexico / Solo show
GROUP SHOWS:
September 2020 ArtLife fest 2020 / Moscow, Russia / Group show
July / August 2020 Gillian Jason Gallery / London, UK / group on-line show “What We See”
February 2020 Galerie LeRoyer / Montreal, Canada / Focus exhibition Yulia Bas
September 2019 ArtLife fest 2019 / Moscow, Russia / Group show and speaker
April 2019 COX gallery / Bordeaux, France / Group show “Portrait de Femme”
March 2019 ArtLeadHer Gallery with Urban Zen / New York, USA / Group show “King
Woman”
August 2018 CAGE Contemporary Art Gallery / Barcelona, Spain / Group show
AWARDS:
2018 Barcelona International Gallery BIG awards - Finalist
COLLECTIONS:
Yulia's works have been acquired for the private collections in USA, United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and Russia.