Ukrainian artist. Julia Beliaeva

When did you become interested in art?
At all stages of my life, I have been interested in art in one way or another. I have been involved with contemporary art since 2010, which is when I started holding my first exhibitions.

How do you create your sculptures?
I have an art education but I wasn’t trained to become a sculptor. This art form found me on its own. I remember going to Copenhagen and visiting Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and the Danish porcelain museum. As I was already interested in 3D software, I was very inspired by that, so I decided to take the ZBrush course. This is how my sculptures are created: scanning technology, sculpting stage in ZBrush, 3D printing, then casting in the material. I really love porcelain and its semantic load. Porcelain is about fragility but at the same time the material is very strong, just like humans.

We are resilient but the wrong attitude towards ourselves can turn us fragile and vulnerable. I am also inspired by Soviet porcelain and I want to experiment more with different materials.

What are you engaged in?
At this stage, I’m nurturing an idea that I really want to implement. An idea must always go through a maturing stage. During this stage, the complete picture is put together like a puzzle and I end up finding different aspects and possibilities to present it qualitatively. I used to want to rush things and quickly reduce everything to an exhibition. Now I take pleasure in slowness and the feedback process. The best opportunity to display this or that idea comes in due time.

Regarding my current exhibitions, I’m currently participating in the group exhibition “Remember Yesterday” at the PinchukArtCentre and in a virtual exhibition called „The Last Childhood in this City“ at V-Art. In both exhibitions, I work with the theme of childhood against the backdrop of the historical events that Ukraine has had to deal with. Also, La Pamplona Art Studio x Vienna Collectors’ Club are showing my work at Parallel Vienna 2021 from May 26th to 30th.

What does your art mean to you?
It just so happens that my psyche is built in a way that creates the need for me to transform my experience, my sense of the world, into a form of art. Art is a way of thinking and living. I look for myself in different directions, I don’t want to get attached to one medium. Also, art is an eternal platform for experimentation, unification, interaction with people. Through my art, I explore humanity as a whole as well as my own humanity.

Where can people buy your art?
I work with the following galleries: La Pamplona Art Studio (Vienna), Sabsay Gallery (Copenhagen), and Forsa Gallery (Kyiv).

How do you like to spend your weekends?
I try to take my mind off work, go for walks in Kyiv, be out in nature with my family. My son is 6 years old.

What else do you have planned this year?
I am planning to tokenize a couple of digital works and publish them at the Foundation app. I also want to put some of my more elaborated sculptures in porcelain. Together with La Pamplona Art Studio, I will launch two series in porcelain as a bigger edition soon. With “Edition of 2021”, we will celebrate art, craftsmanship, and technology. I try not to plan exhibitions. Covid has changed my attitude towards planning.

Julia Beliaeva – www.julia-beliaeva.com