Astalavista baby, Circa 2020

Lihina Yulia  

Yulia Lihina, born on November 10, 1984 in Kharkov, Ukraine, was a very restless and stubborn child. At three years old, her mother showed her how to draw to calm her down. Julia attended art studio and art school from 1989 to 2002. This experience helped her understand how to live further, since she could not imagine her life without colors and art. She graduated with honors from the Kharkov Art School (2002-2007), painting department, becoming an artist and teacher. During her studies, Julia painted many paintings to order, including stills from films, which was an interesting experience for her. After graduating from school, she got married and soon became the mother of two children. After the divorce, she tried to return to painting, but her children did not allow her to do so. While working for a network company while on maternity leave, she saw how artists painted and sold their paintings, which inspired her to take up painting again. She quit her online business and started over with support from family and friends. In 2019, Yulia began studying how artists work on the Internet. In 2020, she took a course on blogging and selling paintings abroad, starting to paint during the quarantine period. She considers the Internet the best direction for developing and promoting her creativity around the world. On February 24, 2022, war began in her country. Initially, Yulia thought that everything would end quickly, but then she had to leave home, experiencing pain and depression. She quickly coped with it, started volunteering and received a grant to purchase art materials. This gave her the motivation to move forward and do something she had wanted to do since she was three years old. Julia draws inspiration from films, loving the genres of biography, thriller, crime, detective, comedy, history, sports, drama and romance. She loves to convey the complex emotional states of actors on camera and finds cinema a special source of inspiration. Her favorite artists are Levitan, Polenov, Serov, Repin and many others in this style. She specializes in drawing, painting and landscapes, working primarily in oil, charcoal and pastel. Julia primes the canvases herself, using the techniques of the old masters and imprimatura.