Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Daria Hill.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
When I was seven, my mom, a professional artist, thought it would be “exciting” to disappear from (Soviet-Communist) Poland and become refugees in Austria. After one year, we immigrated to the States, and survived a bohemian existence throughout Syracuse, Chicago, and San Diego. I grew up immersed in fine art and design amidst the chaos of my mother’s amazing paintings, jewelry, and furniture projects. I found myself constantly tripping over brushes, canvases, wires, twigs … and spent most of my childhood (yawning loudly) at art museums, galleries, and fairs.
I didn’t want to be a starving artist and I was sick of the chaos, so I became a graphic designer. For over 20 years, I have enjoyed a career specializing in branding, logos, advertising, web, print design, and website coding, while taking candid photos of strangers for fun (at the dismay of my loved ones). Once street photography became trendy and I grew weary, I found my true calling while capturing my own kids, family, and friends. I LOVE photography, and I LOVE kids. I am passionate about capturing moments that are real, artsy, organic, intuitive, documentary, and cinematic. I am now incorporating my photography into my design business for all-inclusive brand storytelling.
Please tell us about your art.
I specialize in capturing authentic and fleeting moments and creating fine art, visual stories. I am constantly learning and evolving, but I believe humans are most interesting and beautiful in their authenticity. People seem to look better when relaxed and natural. I am captivated and amused by children’s raw charm, the magic of childhood, the depth of family life, nature, light, movement, and people in general.
After eight years as a creatively-starved, designer/artist mother, I became an expert at chasing kids with my camera – and finding art, humor, joy and beauty in my everyday life. It’s like hunting to me. Capturing and freezing a moment, artistically, forever is so thrilling!
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
I think the biggest challenge facing artists today is an over-saturated market. Social media is a great tool to share your work, get inspired and connect with others, but saturation and a lack of attention span in a media-spastic society makes that difficult sometimes. Although, it does force you to find your own niche and try to stand out. I’m kind of new to Instagram and didn’t realize there are all these “tricks” people use to get followers. Even though my degree is in advertising and I understand marketing, as an artist, sometimes it feels so self-absorbed, dirty, insincere, and shady. You can’t force people to love your work, and numbers can be deceiving. I’m trying to ignore the numbers and rat race, and just focusing on challenging myself to be unique, and produce the best work I can instead.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://juliadaria.com
- Email: stopyelling@juliadaria.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/juliadariahill
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byjuliadaria
Image Credit:
all images copyright Julia Daria Hill
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
