Julia Winter lived about twelve years in Workuta, at the North Pole, which inspired her to take on the artist name “Winter”. Originally from Moscow, having emigrated to The Netherlands, changing identities and learning about social and political differences - all this has been feeding Julia’s artistic consciousness.

Julia uses opposite worlds like the male and the female, the past and the present or guilt - innocence and transmutes them into a poetic visual works using layers of different media that are placed over and upon each other.

Julia explores the phenomenon of the portrait and how we perceive the other by using photographic images or images of older paintings. Often her works are 'double portraits' in which the first transparent image is mounted on glass or acrylic glass whilst the second portrait is affixed to the underlying surface of the frame. This way we are looking through both layers and recognising a mash of two portraits. Walking from one end of the picture to the other, the two layers differ, depending on the angle from which we look at the underlying image. Furthermore, the reflection in the glass may well add our own reflection to the mix of layers. Suddenly we seem to participate in the portrait and are challenged to look more closely.

Double Portrait II ▫️ by JULIA WINTER