Julia Maleeva

Originally from Bulgaria, abstract artist Julia Maleeva received her BA in Fine Arts and MA in Architecture in 1996. She completed Postgraduate specialisation in Architectural Heritage in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. Her graphics and sketches can be seen in the US Library of Congress.
Julia has been living and working in Bristol for the last 15 years and now focuses completely on painting from her studio in Clifton. She explores her subjects in an involved process of painting, drawing and applying wax to the surface.

Julia is currently showing in galleries across the UK and regularly has very successful shows in London, Singapore and New York. She is Associate Member of Penwith Society of Arts Cornwall.

I use cold wax as one of the main ingredients in my paintings, which allows me to create unique textures. Working only with palette knives I often add to the premixed oil/wax substance - Cornish sand, chopped sea weeds, old tea leaves or just scrapes of old paint from my palette. The whole scraping process involves my imagination to reuse everything again into the painting and be able to create a kind of sustainable art. Small bobbles are one of my signatures, made from scrapes and different mixtures. The wax also helps me to establish more translucency to the oil colours. I am ultimately on a journey of creating a new fusion of dry point and oil painting, wrapped in cold wax.