To say I have been creating art inspired by crystals and minerals since 2013 would be an understatement. I have been obsessed with it! Mineral Art, Mineral Clothing I did it all! Using a vast variety of mediums: drawings on paper, collage, oil on canvas with elements of embroidery (in fine art field), actuals stones as an invitation to the showroom during my brand’s participation in Paris, London, and Copenhagen Fashion Weeks, jacquard knitwear designs replicating mineral patterns and finally in healing work. The presence of minerals in my life is undeniable!

It is most likely that this love and connection to minerals, rocks, and fossils comes from growing up in a small Diamond mining town in Siberia. You could say I was surrounded by diamonds. My grandma used to work for Alrosa, the diamond mining company in Russia and she’d often come back home for lunch with several diamond necklaces, bracelets, or earrings on her person. It was normal. Every family in our little town must have had at least one piece of jewelry from there. Sadly, I don’t own a single one of them. I would love to have some family diamond jewels left, but life is funny and at one point I gave most of it up, whilst getting on my feet.

The series of portraits explored the personalities of people that I know, attributing different mineral stones to the nature and qualities of their character.

Iulia-Filipovscaia -AR- No credit (Mineral Man).jpg

Here are some oil chalk and oil based studies I did post the collages above. Mainly in 21 x 29.7 cm size, unframed one of a kind

Only one collage made it into a large embroidery canvas, which I stretched in 2018. It is a mixed media artwork of a man with a Beril Crystal head. The canvas has been primed in a traditional way and the background embroidered with one of a kind handmade designs.

This particular Beril was inspired by a major specimen from a deposit in Zhitomirskaya Oblast, Ukraine listed in the above collectible coffee book of finest and best known in the world collection of natural mineral crystals housed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Masterpieces of the Mineral World is definitely part of my Magical Library. This variety of heliodor is 14cm holding incredible gemminess and great lustre. The green colour of the mineral represents enormous abundance and intellect associated with the person portrayed. The Beril and Heliodor are thought to be the best healing and divination stones to empower incantations or charms (spells); help in prevention of bladder infections, kidney stones, and asthma; a "cure-all" for jaundice, liver disease, and laziness; reconcile married couples, revive fading love and bring victory in battle or litigation.

Here is the artwork