I am an artist exploring the space between the visible and the internal — where nature, people, and moments of transformation become a mirror for the viewer's own inner state.

My work begins with a simple question: what is happening inside a person, not around them. Drawing on my background in fine art, design, and textile craftsmanship, I create figurative and landscape works that reflect moments of transformation, resilience, and becoming. Nature and people are my subjects, but capturing the outer world has never been my real aim — what I seek to capture is an inner state. When someone looks at my painting, I don't want them thinking, "what beautiful scenery, I've seen something like this before." I want them to recognize themselves in it, as though the canvas were a mirror held up to their own inner state.

Moments of transformation draw me in especially — coming of age, the shift from following someone else's choices to taking responsibility for one's own. These experiences know no boundary of age or gender: a man may look at the image of a young woman coming into her own and see his own journey reflected back, because at some point, each of us has lived through a similar becoming.

There's also a particular state I return to often — a person at their limit, exhausted but not broken. That moment when strength is nearly gone, yet something deeper insists on continuing, on still fighting for one's dreams and goals.

What I hope for, ultimately, is to turn the viewer's gaze from the external to the internal — not to show them the world as I see it through my own eyes as an artist, but to help them, through my paintings and through the emotional experience of viewing them, discover their own inner world.

  • Iuliia Ivanova (b. 1983) is a visual artist based in Sarasota, Florida.

    Iuliia received a classical art education: as a teenager, she completed a full six-year program at an art school in Russia. In 2001, she entered Smolensk State University (formerly Smolensk Pedagogical University), in the Art and Design department, where she earned two bachelor's degrees — one in interior design and one in teaching fine art. She graduated from the university in 2007.

    After graduating, Iuliia worked for six years as a graphic designer in advertising and print publishing, creating packaging, branding, and identity work for various brands.

    In 2013, she founded her own business creating costumes for rhythmic gymnastics and figure skating — entirely handmade, including sketching, sewing, fabric painting, and rhinestone decoration. Every costume was custom-made and one of a kind. She ran this business for 12 years.

    In 2022, Iuliia relocated from Russia to Los Angeles, where she decided to return to painting and pursue it as a professional artist. For the past two years, she has been actively developing her practice and is now ready to share her work with the world. She currently paints with gouache, with plans to move into oil painting on canvas.