Yulia Zaretskaya

Yulia Zaretskaya was born in 1965 in Leningrad. From early childhood onwards, she showed her fondness for drawing. School came easy to her: after a secondary art schooling at the Academy of Arts she decided to continue her education there, in Vladimir Vetrogonsky’s workshop for graphic art. This choice was well-reasoned: the department for graphics as opposed to the painting department seemed to have a unique atmosphere and freedom of artistic activities. At that time she became interested in lithography, an effective technique which allows creating both fine graphic and monochrome images. In 1989, Zaretskaya earned her diploma and joined the Union of Artists soon after that.

Yulia’s artistic preferences were changing: as a young girl she was charmed by the art group Mir Iskusstva, graphics by Ostroumova-Lebedeva, and the watercolours of Benois. As the years went by, the choice of her priorities became more sophisticated. Today the artist defines the main quality criterion for a work of art as fullness and completeness of expression, avoidance of self-contained subject scope and excessive literary references.

Landscape is the optimal genre for the characterization of an image which doesn’t need any verbal explanations or interpretations. Maybe this is the reason why her artwork is full of an abstracted, pensive, melancholy and highly intimate distinctive spirit.