Yuliya was born in 1980 in Soviet Kazakhstan to a family of civil engineers. She grew up between an industrial desert town on the Caspian Sea and the pine‑lined lakes of the northern border — a landscape that quietly shaped her sense of scale, solitude, and wonder.
The eldest of two sisters, she began formal art training at age ten. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she earned a scholarship to a top law school in Almaty, but new language restrictions closed the path to legal practice. She completed an English‑taught MBA and returned home, where the booming oil and gas industry quickly absorbed her skills.
In 2005 she moved to Aberdeen, later relocating to London to work across the international energy sector. Following the 2008 financial downturn, she stepped away from contracting to pursue full‑time legal studies, earning a Master’s in Law (Dispute Resolution) from Queen Mary University of London and completing the GDL at BPP. She then worked in wealth management until 2015 — the year she finally chose to follow her artistic calling.
Once she committed to her practice, Yuliya developed a distinct visual language with remarkable speed. Her early large‑scale watercolours and cloud‑filled surfaces earned her the nickname Paper Plane Girl at artist‑led fairs, where her fragile little plane became a symbol of resilience and lift. Her opulent cloudscapes soon pushed her work into semi‑abstract territory — vast, fluid, quietly defiant. It was an unexpected but fitting evolution for an independent female artist from a small desert town who loved working with uncontrollable mediums.
From 2017 to 2019, Yuliya lived between Moscow and London, supporting her partner’s career and pausing UK exposure. On returning, she joined the thriving creative communities at Wimbledon Art Studios and Delta House in Earlsfield. Today, Yuliya’s practice extends far beyond cloudscapes. Her collections — Blue Bay, La Femme Nuage, and House of Eden — weave new narratives through her unmistakably luminous, semi‑abstract language. Refusing to be confined to a single direction, she works across canvas, paper, and wood, exploring scale, gesture, and atmosphere with equal boldness.
Buy Online
0118 948 1610