November's Featured Artist - Julia Lesnichy

Whatever subject Julia Lesnichy investigates she often finds herself inspired by fast changing light and color in nature. She is captivated by the colors shes sees depending on the time of the day and season and uses oils and pastels to capture these fleeting moments. She often finishes her plein air paintings in her studio in Crozet, which is located in a quiet rural area in Virginia. Julia says that she literally lives in the woods, among the trees, with the tree tops hovering above the house. These trees have always served as a great resource of inspiration when they turn scarlet, bright yellow and glowing orange in the fall. 

The place she lives now is quite different from where she was raised. Julia was born in the glorious city of Leningrad (now St.Petersburg) in the Soviet Union, but her parents moved to Moscow when she was only 8 months old. There she spent her childhood and a large part of her adult life. As a child Julia was a diligent student focusing all her attention on science, foreign languages and music. She even thought about pursuing a career of a musician.

Though Julia was very enthusiastic about painting she could not make a final decision to become a full time artist. Only in 1998 Julia began taking private classes in drawing and oil painting in Russia. In 1999 Julia moved to Charlottesville with the family. While her husband studied law at the UVA she took private classes in pastel and watercolor.

In 2002 Julia moved back to Russia, where she put in use all the knowledge and skills she had acquired in Cape Cod School of Art and kept on painting vigorously en plein air focusing primarily on landscapes and outdoor floral still life. In Russia Julia created around 200 works, many of which are in private collections.

In 2010, Julia moved to the USA with her family, allowing her son to get an American education, and settled down in Crozet Virginia. Though Julia had used pastel as a medium before, she returned to it again, applying pastels boldly with swift painterly strokes creating layers of colors. Julia received her first award in pastels in 2012 and 20 more in the following 6 years, including two Honorable mentions in Pastel magazine 100 competitions and a Finalist in Artist's magazine 33rd competition in 2016. She is a member of American impressionist society, Pastel Society of America, Midatlantic pastel society, Northwestern pastel society(Signature member) and Southeastern pastel society (Member of Excellence).