Artist Bio

Julia Bright’s oil paintings evoke a feeling of beauty, elegance, and the colorful pleasure of life. Deeply rooted in the realist tradition of the “Old Masters,” her modern sensibility reveals itself in her use of color, light, and subject matter. Ms. Bright’s belief that paintings should add to the source of beauty and happiness in our lives, shows in her work.

Working usually from an umber underpainting, Ms. Bright paints alla prima, which means “all at once.” She works with a concept of chiaroscuro, the high-contrast light-against-dark that is the hallmark of Old Master painting.

Born in Russia Ms. Bright has always been mesmerized by works of the “Old Masters.” As a little girl, at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and later at the Louvre in Paris, she spent hours contemplating the works of Rembrandt, Chardin and Ingres. Later, throughout living and working in Western Europe, Ms. Bright would spend hours observing the beauty, the movement of light, the balance of composition that made these masterpieces so compelling.She decided then that one day, she would be an artist.

After moving to the US in 1979, Ms. Bright adjusted to American life as a high school student by connecting with her newly adopted culture through art-drawing, painting, attending museums and galleries in her new home of Denver, Colorado. She eventually went on to pursue her MBA in marketing, and has had a successful career in marketing management for the past 15 years. Five years ago, she decided to pursue her lifelong dream and first love of fine art professionally.

Ms. Bright has studied drawing and painting with David A. Leffel and Joshua Fallik. She has exhibited her work at the Oil Painters of America shows, Boulder Art Association’s National Juried Shows, where she received the corporate award of excellence two years in a row, at the Art Students League of Denver’s Art & Soul Juried Show & Auction and at various commercial venues. Her work hangs in private collections in the US and Europe. Ms. Bright is an associate member of the Oil Painters of America (OPA), and a member of the Boulder Art Association. Ms. Bright is an associate member of the Oil Painters of America (OPA), and a member of the Boulder Art Association, and she lives in Boulder, Colorado.