Yulia Nikiforova was born in the village of Zinkiv, nestled among the picturesque hills of Khmelnytskyi. Being close to nature since childhood, Yulia learned to see and feel the beauty in everything around her. She graduated from the Faculty of Interior Design at Khmelnytsky National University, but never worked a single day, she never worked in her specialty.

However, her love for art only grew over time. At the age of 21, as a mother of two young children, she and her decided to open their own art studio-workshop for adults and children called “Cube”. Since then, together with her husband, she has been raising three children and working as a teacher and curator of the children’s department in the studio. The art studio The Cube is the project of the artist’s entire creative life. After all, it is alive and very dynamic, constantly growing and developing. New ideas and the search for better teaching methods encourage her to improve her skills and become a master of her craft.

“I am interested in absolutely all possible techniques: watercolor, acrylic, oil paints, dry and oil pastels. I love graphics, collage and modeling. In addition, I am interested in child psychology, studying marketing and advertising. My closest style is impressionism. I don’t like to dwell on details for a long time, I love experiments and almost never draw sketches for my works. Sometimes I plan one thing, but instead I put the first stroke and everything revolves around this stroke. Enjoying the process of painting is my main goal. People know me as a very calm and reserved person, but it’s definitely not about painting, because there is another separate world for me. I try to constantly improve myself, because I have a great responsibility. For me, the educational process is a combination of time-tested knowledge and an interesting presentation of the material. It is also about helping a child learn not just to look, but to really see, notice and feel. But the most important task is to instill a love of creativity. If a child loves to create and believes in himself, then there is no stopping him.”

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yulia has been volunteering. Together with the volunteer organization Zakhyst, she has implemented many projects aimed at supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Together with her team, friends, and students, she painted about a hundred helmets and used weapons, which were then sold at fairs and auctions. Today, Yulia has her own “creative front” – students, children, friends and parents who help her paint crafts and draw pictures.

Here is what the artist says about the exhibition:

“The light inside you” exhibition is, firstly, my desire to support our unbreakable nation. Each work contains a piece of my soul, love and gratitude to our soldiers. My works are about the values and traditions that bind all Ukrainians together, about the desire to find our true identity, about the myths and legends of ancient Ukraine, about faith. Most of the works were written in one breath in a few hours. When should we go back to the basics, to our roots, to the memory of our family, if not now? When else have we felt so keenly the value of Ukrainian culture, traditions, and customs? When else have we delved so deeply into history and searched for our own, native, original? It’s time to return to the crossroads we’ve been at more than once and choose the right path to a brighter future.”