About the Artist

Julia Bezgacheva, originally from Siberia, is a pastel and oil artist based in Arlington, Virginia. Her work centers around the interaction of emotional, descriptive, and rational elements from both natural and cultural sources and different contexts of meaning. 

With a Ph.D. in Mathematics and extensive experience in creating data visualizations, Julia became fascinated by how light, color, and form can evoke or convey meaning and emotions, which led her to explore different painting techniques and mediums.

 Since 2017, Julia has combined a successful career in Data Science with painting professionally. To refine her technique and style, she learned from masters like Rob  Liberace, Daniel Keys and through educational programs from the National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery. From 2020, she began to use watercolor with pastels to combine the fluidity and unpredictability of watercolor with the controllable use of pastels. 

Julia is an artist member of the Arts Club of Washington, Arlington Artist Alliance, and a juried member of the Pastel Society of America. She is a member of The Art League, as well as the Maryland and Red Rock Pastel Societies. Her works have been presented in international, national, and local exhibitions over the years, and can also be found monthly in Gallery Underground, Arlington, Virginia. Julia’s most recent, among many awards includes the Award of Excellence at the Arts Club of Washington exhibition. From September 2024, Julia serves as a President of the McLean Art Society.  Julia has more than 25 years of teaching experience. She conducted workshops and classes online and in in-person, both locally and internationally.

You can see Julia’s  process, behind the scenes, and sketches from life drawing sessions on Instagram at instagram.com/ulkin_art

Artist Statement

I work primarily in soft pastel, a tactile medium that creates infinite possibilities of expressive mark-making and luminous colors. My other mediums are oil and encaustic, and I find all three to be surprisingly similar in their creative methodology despite being very different in application. 

I do not limit my art to particular subjects but rather aim to paint light, air, and emotions, looking for sources of meaning in a landscape, still life, or a human or animal portrait.I start by creating a watercolor - or wet pastel underpainting by rubbing alcohol to block-in the right values, to then either unifying or highlighting certain colors that should stand out.  When I continue my work with pastels, I can  get as close to working with pure pigments as possible. 

As both an artist and a scientist, I am attracted to the vibrancy and luminosity of colors and fascinated by how light, color and form can evoke or convey meaning and emotions - especially how details and nuances can influence a message. The environment around us is full of natural sources of meaning, and I create my paintings to discover and share them.