Shevchenko-Kuhtina Yuliya

Biography

Yulia Shevchenko (Kukhtina) was born in 1974 in Kharkov.
From 1993 to 1998, she studied at the Kharkov Institute of Art and Industry, where such masters as A.M. Konstantinopolsky, V.Ya. Lozovoy, and A.G. Glukhikh taught.
After completing her studies (1998), she found herself in St. Petersburg and visited the Hermitage Museum for an Impressionist exhibition, where my worldview was finally formed and I saw my place in it.

1999 marked the beginning of my professional creative career, which took place primarily in picturesque Crimea, where Konstantin Korovin, Issak Levitan, Maximilian Voloshin, and Ivan Aivazovsky worked. Plein air paintings in Yalta, Feodosia, Gurzuf, Koktebel, Sudak, Foros, and Luchisty finally shaped me as a colorist.

In 2003, I held a professional plein air exhibition, "Along the Roads of Vasilkovsky," in which I was fortunate to participate alongside experienced artists of the old school. We worked in the places where the master had created his works.

In 2004, I made my exhibition debut, with the exhibition "A Century Later. Along the Roads of Vasilkovsky" at the Kharkiv Art Museum.

In 2005, my first solo exhibition, "The Last Snow and the First Thawed Patches," at the Kharkiv Art Museum, led to an invitation to work in A.G. Glukhikh, a painter, teacher, and representative of the Leningrad art school of the 1960s, where I gained invaluable experience in creative work and communication. That same year, I joined the Union of Artists of Ukraine and continued my creative travels throughout Ukraine, Crimea, and Russia.
Since 2006, the geography of my creative plein air trips has expanded to various cities in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Italy, and especially Poland.
2007, a plein air in Kizhi, which revealed to me the amazing, tranquil atmosphere of the northern latitudes.
2011 brought the opportunity to work at the Musical Comedy Theater, whose director kindly provided me with the entire theater as a studio and actors as models for portraits. As a result, an exhibition of theatrical portraits was created and displayed at the Vzglyad Gallery, the House of Folk Art, and the Kharkiv Art Museum. Some of the works from it were added to the museum's collection.
2015. A.G. Glukhikh passed away. Having the opportunity to live and work in Warsaw permanently, I joined the European Union of Artists in Warsaw and continued my creative work there.
2012-2018. Thematic exhibitions of landscapes of picturesque Masuria were organized in the cities of Olsztyn, Kieńszyn, and Węgorzewo.
Along with plein air painting, I continued to teach portrait painting to prospective students. This allowed me to enrich my collection of portraits and present a solo exhibition, "Portrait," at the Kharkiv Art Museum in 2019. In 2022, fate brought me to my beloved Crimea, and it all started all over again...
2023 marked my permanent move to Krasnodar. A year of living in Crimea allowed me to create a series of works that formed the basis for my 2025 solo exhibition, "Crimean Impression," at the Kovalenko Krasnodar Art Museum.
This allowed me to begin a new stage in my professional creative life.
2024-2025: Plein air painting in Goryachiy Klyuch, Balaklava, Staraya Ladoga, St. Petersburg, Vyborg, and Karelia.