Julia Khramtsova

Portrait By Tessa Camilla Photography

Your recent projects aim to inspire creativity in your local community. What motivates you to work in this socially engaged direction?

Working as a teacher for many years after the graduation from university I noticed that I really enjoy working with people. As a creative person, I observed a lot of a creative input from my students’ side as well. In the most cases, they just needed a kind of guidance to work on their own projects and tasks.

That’s why after a covid pandemic I’ve started giving workshops to a local community to bring the people together. Many of workshops’ participants became friends. It gives me and the others so much energy and leads us to new ideas and experiments. It also helps getting together as a community and have fun working on own masterpieces.

Every person is creative, we just need a starting point or accessible materials to create a little piece of art to be proud of. It even doesn’t need to be a piece of art in our general understanding. It’s more important for me to show how people can get an idea what it means for them to be creative and what is all possible to do.

Julia Khramtsova | Abschied

Many of your artworks incorporate expressive textures, imaginative landscapes, and symbolic elements. What themes or emotions do you explore through this visual language?

I think a lot about connection and communication with nature and other living beings around. Everyone and everything we feel, see or touch is different and has its specific elements. And everything in life and in the world is connected. First of all, I prefer to have an idea or a concept what exactly I’d like to express in my works and choose the best suitable technic for it. For example, landscapes present a magical world of flora which is quite interactive within itself. Nature is such a miracle on our planet, it gives so much inspiration for artistic people. I would say, due to my painting style I explore such human emotions as excitement, joy, sadness and sometimes I need this process to understand better situations that I’m experiencing in life.

Julia Khramtsova | And It’S Going So On And So On | 2025

Several of your works seem to reflect ecological concerns or commentary on modern life. What role do environmental or social themes play in your art?

Environmental themes play indeed a big role in my personal life, and I can’t cut it off from my artistic life as well. Multiple crisis and catastrophes, human disrespectful behaviour towards animals and nature prevail at the moment everywhere, so I decided to reflect on our habits as consumers and speak up about problems implicating them in paintings. During my fashion design studies, I pointed out to bad fast fashion image and learned about upcycling technics by myself a lot and continue taking part in fashion projects.

Julia Khramtsova | Bild Trennung Einreichung

You work across different mediums – painting, drawing, illustration, and even sewing. How do these practices influence one another in your creative process?

You’re right, there are lot of technics and practices in my work because I can’t choose only one. The mixture is more interesting and influences for sure the composition, texture, structural elements and impression by looking at a piece. If I can put some of them into one painting or illustration, I’m going for it.

About 15 years ago I wanted actually to start with book binding but ended in the oil painting class. Classical drawing was more or less a sketching tool to build a composition for a later artwork. During learning process I’ve started experimenting and trying different technics – Chinese ink, watercolour pencils, and I did book binding as well. But my biggest passion is fashion design and I discovered a totally new world during sewing garments. Colourful and soft fabrics inspire me all the time. I’m passionate about upcycling and sewing garments out of fabric leftovers. I create a structure and ornaments on garments which could be also painted on paper. Sometimes the garments look like pieces of wearable art. Or illustrations I create could be printed on fabrics as well.

What draws you to paint on unconventional surfaces such as wood furniture, and how does this format change the way you develop a piece?

Oh, painting on wood furniture or little wooden objects takes a lot of time! That is good for practicing some patience, try it . I did an art project on demand a year ago and fell in love with painting on freshly processed wood surface. Sure, I did some pieces before but the affection to it came about a year ago. Since then, I can’t stop myself painting on upcycled furniture or wooden objects saved in the neighbourhood if people don’t need them anymore. I can create a beautiful colourful object for decoration or use an object again for purpose (chair, wooden storage box, coffee table). Using different surfaces gives me an opportunity to get to know and learn about new materials and try painting differently. Using colours for painting on wood or house walls makes an impact on creation of textures and colour mixing.

Julia Khramtsova | Heisswasser

How do the places where you have lived – Shanghai, Munich, and others – shape the atmosphere of your paintings?

I think, this is a bit a philosophical question … I never preferred black and white in life, I always needed colours in-between, a wide palette of everything. Born and raised in a big city I have continued to spend my life in (very) big cities traveling or living there. Locations, environments, people and animals of different places include so many feelings, thoughts, cultural habits and traditions which have bright sides.

Interaction, ambiguity, diversity, pluralism, various cultural lifestyles and my personal experiences create an atmosphere of communication within a space or environment and influence universal themes which are understandable to anyone of us despite the exact living spot.

Julia Khramtsova | In den Bergen

How do you hope viewers will feel or reflect when looking at your works, especially the ones dealing with nature, memory, or everyday objects?

I hope, viewers become curious about paintings or illustrations and are eager to discover all little details and meanings hidden in artworks. It’s kind of a game between us – creator and viewer. And of course, I hope that some people recall their memories and reflect about their own experiences looking at my artworks.