Julia Medyńska (CV)

Julia Medyńska was born in Socialist Poland. In 1985, her family managed to escape into West Berlin. After high school, she moved to New York to study acting; attending the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the  Neighborhood Playhouse. She performed at the Off-Broadway Manhattan Ensemble Theatre.  

Medyńska returned to school in 2009 to earn her BA, as well as her MFA in visual arts from Columbia University. Heavily influenced by her acting background, her figurative paintings are composed narratives that explore the idea of the social mask employed to hide underlying psychological truths. She is an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant recipient. Her solo exhibition at the Muzeum Ziemi in Międzyrzecz “Maskarada” has currently been moved to Spring 2021 due to COVID. She is currently preparing for her first London solo show at School Gallery next year.

Artist Statement

My painting explores the psychology of the individual. My recent painting, has expanded from individual portraits to large scale narratives. I compose environments where  characters engage in violent acts while apathetic bystanders witness the macabre scene.

Since childhood, I have faced the struggle between the private drama versus the public persona. I was five years old when my family escaped Poland. Settled in Berlin, the five of us lived in a single room. My domineering grandmother, the family matriarch, was determined to fit in with the affluent Germans and hide our impoverishment. She  manipulated her two daughters to climb the social ladder through a series of  advantageous and abusive marriages. In order to blend in at a very prestigious private  school, I learned to "put on a mask" and hide the embarrassing reality of my home life.

In my paintings, I see myself as a film director composing narratives from unrelated  source images to develop an uncanny dramatic scene. I search for my “actors” either in vintage black and white photography or film stills. Inspired by their body language, I invent a story. Its setting is either taken from a 19th century landscape painting or a film still. What attracts me to an image are lurid color temperatures and contrasting lighting scenarios. I aim for a beautiful yet ominous atmosphere, creating a world where characters inflict physical harm onto one another. I intentionally keep facial features and  expressions minimal to resist describing an identity. Instead the actors become archetypes and their physical activity an allegory for a psychopathological world. Each painting is a horrid secret where I can choose to lift the curtain.