Giulia Quaresima ASGFA

Biography 

Giulia Quaresima is an Italian artist living and working in Cambridgeshire.

Her art career includes an extensive education. She completed her MA in History of Contemporary Art with honours from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2012. Prior to receiving her MA, she earned her BA in Cultural Heritage Studies with honours from the University of Pisa, Italy, and her BA in Painting with honours from the Academy of Fine Arts, Carrara, Italy.

Giulia’s work has been exhibited in London – Mall Galleries (Women in Art Fair, Society of Women Artists, Society of Graphic Fine Art); The Gallery at Green and Stone, Chelsea – and also across the UK – Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, Conwy, North Wales; Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral, Somerset; The Gallery, Holt – and internationally too – Palazzo Arese Borromeo, Cesano Maderno, Italy; Italian Culture Institute Gallery, Cracow, Poland; Petrartedizioni Art Gallery, Pietrasanta, Italy.

She has been shortlisted out of 836 entries as one of the 11 finalists of the London Graphic Centre Art Prize 2023 sponsored by Theo Paphitis.
She has received a special commendation from the Institute of East Anglian Artists as a result of her entry in the IEA Open Exhibition 2022 and she has been a member of the Cambridge Drawing Society since 2018.
Over the years she has received several private commissions for portraits, in oil or pencil/ charcoal.

Her artistic activity focuses on figurative subjects, particularly portraits and the human form; in the last couple of years, she deepened her love for drawing, and she now mostly works using coloured pencils (a specific selection of colours) and charcoal.
The relentless passage of time, loneliness, solitude, the love/sacrifice behind motherhood, the fascinating moment of conception, the power of gesture and body language to express emotions and feelings, are some of her favourite subjects.

The strong use of contrast of lights and shadows is a direct influence of Caravaggio’s “chiaroscuro”.

For the subjects, deep inspiration comes from Egon Schiele and Kathe Kollwitz’s works.