Meet Yulia Brodskaya

We were lucky to catch up with Yulia Brodskaya recently and have shared our conversation below.

Yulia, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

Nature is the ultimate source of inspiration that keeps my creativity flowing. It works magic in so many ways whether I’m just mentally fatigued and choose to go for a conscious walk in the park (meaning simply observing the colors, textures, shapes of everything I see around me), or start browsing beautiful photographs of birds, flowers, trees to find something that I feel inspired to depict for my next artwork. Being in/with nature never failed to bring me back to the place when creativity just flows naturally.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

As long as I can remember myself paper always held a special fascination for me, but if someone had told me all those years ago that I will become a paper artist and won’t be even remotely interested in using any other materials, I would have never believed that.
Over the years I’ve tried many different methods and techniques of working with paper, just as a hobby ‘on a side’ because I was convinced that all things digital is the only reliable way to make a living. However after finishing my Masters degree in Graphic Communications I realized that I would rather try to become an illustrator and create with my hands, so I spent about 1.5 years drawing and searching for my unique drawing style, but instead I found paper…

My first paper artwork felt like coming home; I quickly realized that I’m definitely onto something much more interesting than all my previous drawn illustrations; immediately I abandoned drawing, and instead emerged myself into this new territory of making art with strips of paper.

My paper art practice is a journey, it evolves and changes constantly, and I learned to readily allow these transformations to happen… I started ‘drawing’ with paper strips at the beginning of my paper journey when I was doing mainly typography-based paper designs (where every line or element was neat and clearly defined); but then gradually moved on to ‘painting’ method – a lot more expressive method of working with paper strips.
When I ‘draw’ with paper strips, I simply follow a pencil line that I previously sketched on a background with bent or shaped segments of card or heavy paper which I glue on top, thus creating a 3D interpretation of a line.
Several years ago my techniques made another evolutionary turn from ‘drawing’ to ‘painting’ with paper. Painting with paper means imitating brushstrokes with tightly packed strips of paper, achieved by combining different color strips in a similar way as mixing paints on a palette. This new technique comes as close to the real painting as possible, but with added quality of a third dimension.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I would say patience, eagerness to experiment/play, and trusting my intuition – my own inner voice versus other people opinions.

I always give the same advice to people who just starting their journey or searching for a new direction: follow and peruse something that brings you joy, makes you curious, makes you excited. There is no need to worry about outcomes or end goals – when you set a goal to just to do something that feels good and experience as much joy as possible in the process – there is no such thing as failing or making a mistake. When you follow your excitement, the experience and path forward starts to shape itself in ways you might not be able to imagine or plan for from the beginning.
So keep your mind and heart open, go for it and ENJOY the process 🙂 That’s my best advice

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I’m open to exploring new collaborations and always take time to explore and feel into all opportunities that come my way. Whether it is a client interested in a portrait of a loved one or a fellow artist/creative who has an idea for collaboration – just drop me a line and we’ll explore the possibilities.

Contact Info:

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