"Unintentional Carmen" Painting

Julie Kalivretenos is a lifelong artist who has previously enjoyed a career in various creative media. She was a corporate Art Director for dot.coms and IT consulting firms, and a Creative Director in television production with formal training in graphic design, computer animation, and multimedia production. She is also a food writer and active in culinary media. An intensity of inspiration has come from traveling the world over the last several years, and the right space and time has come for her to resurrect her natural artistic roots. Julie uses various mixed media to create contemporary and somewhat abstract expressions. Her subject matter has a predominant focus on vibrant, illustrative female faces and moods, and at times nature and animals. The common interpretation demonstrates mood and beauty, whether highlighted in bright palettes or dark, monochromatic, and mysterious. There may also be intertwined elements of culture and fashion, and commonly used are jeweled and metal embellishments or appliqués to her collage work. Collage, acrylics, pencil and charcoal, pastels, and gauche are a few of her favorite mediums. Although Julie’s illustrative, expressive personal style occurs naturally, it is also a derivative of her time and training as a cartoonist and character developer that have personalities with stories to tell. Julie's evolution into the fine art world is a work in progress in of itself. She is actively working to refine her aesthetic, produce cohesive bodies of work, and clarify and strengthen who she is as an artist.