Add a splash of colour and texture to walls with hand-painted murals

Viewing a piece of art is not just an encounter with colour, light, shape texture and form: it’s equally a journey into the self. So, imagine its power when incorporated into the design of your home, not as a standalone, framed canvas or feature grouping, but as a three-dimensional creation sculpted and painted directly onto the walls as a floor-to-ceiling wall mural.

“The mural really becomes the feature of the home, like the heart of the home. It creates an atmosphere,” says artist and interior designer Yuliya Alagir.

Her customized technique involves designing, sketching and then sculpting the three-dimensional relief onto the walls in plaster, finally applying multiple layers of paint, creating a textural and multi-dimensional visual effect through the juxtaposition of colours.

“Sometimes it takes me 30 layers of paint to get just the right look,” says Alagir, who perfected the customized wall mural technique while living in Uzbekistan, where she was a multi-media artist and designer. Sometimes a single wall mural can take months to complete depending on the complexity.

Since immigrating to Canada two years ago, she’s been busy; she’s learned English and now teaches art to teens, has built a bustling interior design practice and has transformed several homes in Calgary with her wall mural technique.

“It becomes a very personal expression of the family,” says Alagir, who spends time getting to know her clients and the space — the size, the light, how the room is used — before she begins sketching potential ideas.

Alagir’s work also embraces variety of artistic media — oils and acrylics on canvas, watercolours, jewellery and art installations — and she pulls inspiration from these forms for her wall murals.

“I was born with a paintbrush in my hand and raised in a family of construction engineers and architects,” she says, noting that as a young artist she would experiment on everything — garden pots, vases, lamps, frames to fine tune her unique process.

When Calgary financial planner and volunteer interpreter Alia Turkunova-Rausch first viewed the artist’s murals, she was overcome. “I was like: ‘What is this? I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,’” says Turkunova-Rausch, who initially met Alagir at the Calgary Women’s Immigration Society, where she volunteers as an interpreter and translator.

At the time, two years ago, Turkunova-Rausch and her husband, who are recent empty-nesters, were considering transforming the basement in their Parkland bungalow into an entertaining haven.

“It was just white walls and yellow panelling,” recalls Turkunova-Rausch.

She initially brought on Alagir to refresh the bathroom, but the scope of the project soon snowballed to include the entire basement. Once she found out that the family was passionate about travel, she designed a tropical scene for the bathroom with a large banana tree as the central focus. In the main entertainment area, she created a four-metre by 2.2-metre mural, featuring an African landscape brimming with animals and indigenous flora and fauna.

“It’s changed the whole feel of the basement,” says Turkunova-Rausch. “You can see the 3-D effect from far away and everyone who comes in has to touch it. I have six grandchildren. They come over and we camp in Africa. Everybody loves it.”

Alagir is currently working on a third mural in the Parkland home, inspired by Alberta’s Badlands.

Turkunova-Rausch is so enthralled with her home that she is collaborating on an art exhibit, featuring the artist’s Mystery of the Sun collection, a series of contemporary artworks conveying peace, kindness and growth through the conceptual symbolism of the sun, which “visually conveys these values without resorting to distinct languages, cultures or ethnic elements.”