Anastasiia Valiulina

Anastasiia Valiulina paints in thick, sculpted oil. Working only with pure oil paint, without texture pastes, she builds each canvas in layers, moving between palette knife, brush and glazing until the surface itself holds the light. Born in 1987, she decided to become an artist at the age of six, watching her grandfather paint in his studio. She went on to train in painting for more than a decade, from art school to a university degree in easel painting, studying under Honored Artists of Ukraine and growing up as an artist within the Crimean school. She has taken part in more than twenty group exhibitions in Ukraine, Russia and Israel, and has held solo exhibitions. Her style is impressionistic, built in rich impasto: color and light come first, and the thick paint gives every form its own weight. Her subjects range from flowers, especially orchids, water lilies and sunflowers, to landscapes, city views, the sea and the figure. She counts Monet, Vrubel, Modigliani and Nicolai Fechin among her influences, and feels a particular affinity for Fechin's approach: bold palette-knife impasto set against thin, translucent passages. She also loves painting en plein air, working outdoors directly from nature. Since 2022 she has lived and worked in Israel. Her paintings are held in private collections in nearly 40 countries.