Colour, in the hands of Lara Julian, is not decorative – it is structural, psychological, and alive. Her paintings do not depict the world; they generate their own internal atmospheres. Through disciplined vertical rhythms and meticulously layered hues, Julian constructs fields of energy that pulse between order and intuition.
Born in Siberia and now based in London, her journey into painting was not linear. A former career in international finance informs the architectural precision of her compositions, yet what unfolds on canvas is deeply sensorial. Each work becomes a meditation on perception – how colour shifts, vibrates, and interacts within space and within us.
Rather than narrative, Julian offers immersion. Her paintings ask the viewer to slow down, to stand still long enough for the eye to adjust and for the chromatic dialogue to reveal itself. In an age of visual overload, her work feels almost radical in its insistence on sustained looking.
Exhibited internationally and collected worldwide, Lara Julian continues to expand a practice that is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally resonant – positioning colour not as embellishment, but as experience itself.
Your path into art was unconventional – starting in international banking before committing fully to painting. At what point did you realise that art would become your life’s work, and how has your earlier professional experience continued to shape your artistic practice?
My journey into the art world was anything but conventional, much like Paul Gauguin, who famously abandoned his career as a stockbroker to pursue painting in Tahiti, seeking a deeper authenticity. Born in Siberia to a family steeped in creativity – my father a figurative painter, my mother an art historian – I initially thrived in international banking, honing skills in strategic analysis and precision that now underpin my compositions. The turning point arrived in 2014 when I relocated to New York, enrolling at the School of Visual Arts, where the city’s relentless energy awakened a latent passion. By the time I moved to London and immersed myself at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, I knew painting was my true calling – a radical pivot that echoed Georgia O’Keeffe’s bold shift from commercial illustration to modernist abstraction. Today, that banking background infuses my work with architectural rigor, much as it did for Jeff Koons, whose Wall Street days informed his calculated, market-savvy approach to contemporary art. It’s this fusion of discipline and intuition that allows me to layer colors with the precision of a financial model, creating artworks that resonate on both intellectual and emotional levels, drawing collectors who appreciate the strategic depth behind the vibrancy.
Your work shows a deep engagement with colour as an independent force and as ‘matter and energy’. Could you explain how you moved from seeing colour as a visual sensation to treating it as the subject of your work?
Colour, for me, has always been more than a mere visual tool – it’s a living entity, akin to how Wassily Kandinsky viewed it as a spiritual force in his synaesthetic abstractions, or how Mark Rothko used it to evoke profound emotional voids in his color-field masterpieces. My evolution began during my early studies, where I shifted from perceiving colour as sensory decoration to embracing it as the central subject, much like Josef Albers in his Homage to the Square series, where hues interact in relational dialogues. Grounded in the Munsell Color System, I experiment with contrasts and juxtapositions, reinterpreting the atmospheric plays of light in Claude Monet’s Water Lilies or J.M.W. Turner’s stormy seascapes. This transformation deepened through studio practice, observing how pigments vibrate with energy, creating psychological impacts similar to Bridget Riley’s op-art illusions. Today, contemporaries like Anish Kapoor, with his immersive pigment sculptures, inspire me to treat colour as ‘matter and energy’ – autonomous, dynamic, and capable of altering perceptions, inviting viewers into a sensorial realm that transcends the canvas.
Your paintings are often described as ‘meditative’ and rhythmical. How do you approach balance between spontaneity and control when constructing these layered compositions?
Crafting my meditative, rhythmical paintings involves a delicate dance between spontaneity and control, reminiscent of Jackson Pollock’s chaotic drips tempered by an underlying structure, or Sean Scully’s striped grids that balance emotional rawness with geometric order. I start with a foundational framework – vertical rhythms drawn from chromatic theory – applying initial layers with hog-hair brushes on coarse-weave linen, methodically building up to sixty strata over years, much like the painstaking glazes of Old Masters such as Jan van Eyck. Yet, I embrace intuition through textural interventions: palette-knife incisions or moulding paste disruptions that introduce flux, echoing Heraclitus’s philosophy of constant change. This balance mirrors contemporary artist Julie Mehretu’s layered abstractions, where controlled maps give way to spontaneous marks, creating perceptual tension. For readers fascinated by the creative process, it’s this interplay that keeps the work alive – order provides the intellectual scaffold, while spontaneity infuses the pulse, resulting in compositions that invite prolonged engagement, much like a symphony unfolding in hues.
Having lived and worked across Siberia, New York, and London, how have these different cultural environments influenced your visual language and your understanding of abstraction?
Traversing Siberia, New York, and London has sculpted my abstract language in ways that parallel the migratory influences on artists like Zao Wou-Ki, who blended Eastern ink traditions with Western abstraction after fleeing to Paris. Siberia’s vast, monochromatic winters taught me the subtlety of tonal shifts, evoking the ethereal mists in Turner’s landscapes. New York’s frenetic vibe, during my time at SVA, fueled bold optical experiments, akin to how the city’s skyscrapers inspired Piet Mondrian’s grid-based Broadway Boogie-Woogie. In London, with its diffused light and cultural mosaic – refined at Slade – I’ve achieved a harmonious synthesis, much like Gerhard Richter’s shift from photorealism to abstraction amid Cold War relocations. These environments have broadened my view of abstraction as a global dialogue, transcending borders to explore universal themes of perception and transformation, offering art enthusiasts a narrative of resilience and adaptation in an increasingly interconnected world.
You have developed what some have called a personal ‘colour system’. What does that mean to you, and how does it guide the technical decisions you make in your work?
My ‘colour system’ is a bespoke framework, rooted in Munsell’s scientific precision but infused with poetic intuition, similar to how Albers systematized relativity in his teachings at the Bauhaus, influencing generations. To me, it means viewing hues as interdependent forces – emotional, energetic, and relational – guiding every technical choice, from pigment selection to glazing techniques. I juxtapose contrasts to harness effects like the von Bezold Spreading, creating vibrations that recall Riley’s perceptual waves or Carlos Cruz-Diez’s kinetic color plays. In practice, this system dictates layering translucent veils, modulating without erasure, much as Monet dissolved forms into light. For those intrigued by art’s technical underpinnings, it’s this method that elevates my work beyond decoration, crafting immersive experiences that challenge viewers to decode the chromatic puzzle, fostering personal connections in a market hungry for innovative abstraction.
Your work often evokes optical rhythm and perceptual tension. Was this influence intentional, and are there specific artists – historical or contemporary – whose ideas you’ve felt in dialogue with while making your work?
The optical rhythm and perceptual tension in my paintings are deliberate, born from a desire to engage the eye dynamically, much like Riley’s undulating stripes that induce movement, or Op Art pioneer Victor Vasarely’s geometric illusions. I’ve long dialogued with historical figures – Albers for his color interactions, Monet for atmospheric depth – and contemporaries such as Scully, whose emotional stripes echo my vertical motifs, or Damien Hirst, who pushes boundaries with his spot paintings’ clinical precision. This influence manifests in my stratigraphic layers, evoking Rothko’s sublime fields or Klimt’s gilded opulence in The Kiss. Art lovers will find it compelling how these references converge in my Revolution Series, where textures fracture predictability, creating a haptic counterpoint that bridges empirical theory with visceral revelation, positioning my work in the lineage of masters who redefined perception.
How do you see the role of abstraction and sensory experience in helping audiences engage with colour beyond representation – especially in an increasingly digital and visual culture?
In our hyper-digital era, where screens bombard us with ephemeral images, abstraction serves as a vital antidote, much like how Rothko’s chapels offer contemplative sanctuaries amid modern chaos, or how contemporary phenom Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms draw crowds seeking immersive escape. By prioritizing sensory experience through textured, layered abstractions, my work encourages viewers to linger, decoding colour beyond mere representation – evoking the emotional pull of Kandinsky’s compositions or the meditative calm in Agnes Martin’s grids. This approach counters visual overload, fostering mindful interactions that resonate personally, as seen in the success of artists like Olafur Eliasson, whose installations blend art and science to engage senses. It’s this insistence on sustained looking that makes abstraction revolutionary, reconnecting us with colour’s primal power and offering a respite that digital filters can’t replicate.
You’ve exhibited internationally and have works in private collections How does shifting between intimate studio practice and public exhibition spaces affect your process?
Navigating between the solitude of my studio and the buzz of international exhibitions is a thrilling contrast, akin to how Picasso alternated between introspective periods and public spectacles, fueling his prolific output. In the studio, I gestate works over years in quiet experimentation, layering with meticulous care. Public spaces, however, amplify this – the freshly opened Women in Art group show at Zebra One Gallery (since March 5, 2026), sparks new ideas. Similarly, my January 2026 Chromatic Legacies at The Conduit Club linked art to climate action, echoing collaborations like Ai Weiwei’s activist installations. This shift invigorates my process, blending introspection with communal energy, and for art world observers, it highlights how exhibitions drive evolution, enhancing visibility and collector appeal in a competitive landscape.
Could you describe a recent work in your studio and what emotional, intellectual, or technical questions it’s trying to raise?
I just finished a captivating Crimson Pulse, 175 x 155 cm acrylic on canvas, as part of my evolving Vital Fields series. This work emerges as an unrelenting expanse of deep, saturated red – dominated by surging vertical lines of crimson and cadmium hues applied with heavy, sculptural impasto that gives the surface a visceral, almost breathing quality.
Imagine standing before a field that pulses with life: the canvas is built in deliberate strata, starting with a cool foundation of green and blue underpainting that establishes subtle luminescence and depth, veiled by layers of pearl white and warm white for a softening transition, then infused with copper mid-layers for metallic warmth. The final, forceful palette-knife applications create arterial ridges and valleys, allowing the underlying tones to refract through, imbuing the entire piece with an iridescent, rhythmic energy that shifts under varying light, much like the way natural phenomena evolve in real time.
Intellectually, Crimson Pulse draws parallels to Mark Rothko’s immersive red fields, where color becomes a meditative portal to existential depths, and Barnett Newman’s vertical ‘zips’ that rupture silence with charged intensity – yet here, the striations multiply into a choral rhythm, turning the monolithic red into a living organism of ascent. It probes profound inquiries: What does it mean for red to embody rhythm – the memory of blood, the insistent beat of creation – amid our chaotic world? Emotionally, it invites viewers into a space of quiet affirmation, fostering introspection on presence and revelation, much like how Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms draw audiences into endless self-reflection, or Anish Kapoor’s pigment voids challenge our sense of scale and immersion.
Looking ahead, how do you see your work evolving – do you have new directions, collaborations, or mediums you’re excited to explore in the next few years?
As I look forward, my practice is poised for exciting expansion, like how Cindy Sherman evolves through multimedia personas. Building on my current Alchemy of Colour at COYA – immersing viewers in rebirth themes – and the Women in Art show at Zebra One, I’m thrilled by collaborations like “Chromatic Legacies” with The Conduit, merging art and environmental advocacy in the vein of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s wrapped landscapes. In the coming years, I envision interdisciplinary ventures: larger installations exploring colour in 3D, perhaps echoing Eliasson’s weather projects, or AI-infused works as seen in Refik Anadol’s data paintings. This trajectory not only deepens perceptual inquiries but positions my art at the intersection of innovation and impact, appealing to collectors and institutions seeking pieces that spark dialogue on regeneration in a changing world. To encapsulate the essence of my artistic journey, as Paul Klee so eloquently put it: ‘Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.’
You can currently view Lara’s work at Zebra One Gallery in Hamsptead, London zebraonegallery
For more information you can visit Lara’s website and Instragrm larajulian_artist
