Yulia Shtern is a Canadian Visual Artist and a Set and Costume Designer for Theatre. 

She earned a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto, Canada), and a Master degree in Scenic Design from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).

To date Yulia attended artist residencies in Canada, Italy, Germany, USA, South Korea, and China. Both her theatre design work and her art have been recognized by a number of awards, including Jessie Richardson Award for Significant Artistic Achievement: Outstanding Design Team, as a Costume Designer for a musical (Vancouver BC, Canada, 2011), and the Blue Lily of Florence Cultural Association’s 2nd Place Award for Sculpture (Florence, Italy, 2019). Her art exhibits internationally, and can be found in private collections across North America and Europe.

Her series Magical Zoo consists of sculptures of animals created from upcycled materials without the use of paint or pigment, placing an emphasis on environmental preservation and on sustainable artistic practices.

ARTIST STATEMENT 

The sculptures in my series showcase the beauty and fragility of natural world through the language of magical realism, and through the medium of upcycled materials.

The materials used are grocery and postage packaging entering my home, with the addition of pieces of non-recyclable plastics, fabric scraps, and foil. The colour of the sculptures is formed by the material itself, without the use of paint or pigment.

Through experimentation and playing with colour, texture, and the inherent limitations of these materials, these sculptures provoke curiosity about nature, to inspire a greater sense of enchantment and wonder for our world.

One of the purposes of this artwork is to create a space for discussion and contemplation to help address our current environmental concerns, and to encourage collective steps toward a more sustainable and habitable planet. My process invites the audiences to a mindful reflection on what and how we consume on a global scale, and on the effects it has on the wildlife.

Animals depicted are often species in crisis. Some of them could face extinction, some are threatened by their habitats being destroyed by human expansion and the changing climate, and some have been transplanted by humans onto new habitats that cannot handle them.

Some of these animals have never encountered a human, like an Arctic Wolf, an animal living in the farthest north of our continent. And yet their remote habitat is facing changes that are disrupting their food supply. Others, like Apple snails, have been deliberately relocated to new habitats for industrial purposes, and these new habitats cannot cope with their presence. Or animals like a Saudi gazelle, who encountered humans so frequently that they have been hunted to extinction.

An essential component of my process is researching and writing descriptive text for each animal, covering a collection of facts on their biology, habitat, behaviour, and conservation status.

The form and shape of the sculptures are true to life, and the colours are exaggerated to bring into question the threshold between the everyday and the magical landscapes of imagination.