Through her work, artist and illustrator Yulia Brodskaya demonstrates that you don’t need complicated tools or expensive materials to create brilliant art. She works with simple materials used in everyday life – paper and glue. Using a technique known as quilling, she weaves multi-colored strips of paper into breathtaking three-dimensional patterns.
Yulia, who started her career as a graphic designer and illustrator in 2006, quickly abandoned computer programs to work with paper. “I believe that one of the main reasons I enjoy the paper craft, is due to my love of the material: paper,” she explained.
“I’ve always had a special fascination for paper, it has taken me a while to find my own way of working with it. Now I draw with paper instead of on it. And then it took a little longer to find out that the technique I have been using so intensively is called quilling – it involves the use of strips of paper that can be rolled, shaped, and glued to the background.”
Although she was concerned at first about the limitations of quilling and the boundaries of what it could or could not convey, she has now discovered that the technique holds tremendous potential. Through paper, she is able to express thoughts and ideas that are unique, so that the medium becomes a part of the message.
Yulia has been working with paper quilling for three years now. Her latest series involves the placement of carefully cut and bent strips of paper to make portraits of elderly people. Some of the pieces in the series include an old woman in a colorful paper scarf, another older woman wiping her tears with a quilled napkin, and an old man clutching a guitar.
Each of Yulia’s pieces are characterized by hauntingly life-like expression in the subjects’ eyes, which seems to bring the arrangement of paper strips to life. Her art, therefore, is more than just skill or technique – there’s something about the pathos of old age that she has managed to capture perfectly.
She did admit that her inspiration for the series came from her own fear of old age. When asked about the effort involved in making these pieces, she said: “Obviously this work took a lot longer than any of the commercial works I’ve done so far. In this laborious work the process has also become important: to my opinion, spending endless hours and days on a piece of work gives the suggestion of great care.”
Yulia’s modern take on paper craft has gained her worldwide recongnition – she was named the ‘breakthrough star’ of 2009 by Creative Review magazine. She has also built an impressive list of clients in the short time that she’s been practicing the craft: Hermés, Godiva, Target, Sephora, and even the New York Times Magazine. Some of her original artworks are owned by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and other private collectors.
We previously covered Yulia Brodskaya’s quilled masterpieces here.
