In her latest paintings, Julia Medyńska examines the narrative of alienation within a dystopian yet romantic world. Through her lifelong struggles of being an immigrant searching for a place to call home, her paintings look deeper at the psychology of putting on a social mask to blend in. Her painting narratives draw heavily from her acting background, masterfully blending horror with seductive beauty to leave the story’s resolution purposefully unclear. Julia creates her paintings like a film director, searching for her “actors” or “stages” via vintage black-and-white photography, film stills, or classical painting, and she invents a story by juxtaposing her characters with a setting. Lurid color temperatures and contrasting lighting scenarios lead her to create a beautiful yet ominous atmosphere. Her actors become archetypes, their physical activities an allegory for a psychopathological world. Each painting is a horrid secret where one can choose to lift the curtain.

Julia Medyńska was born in Socialist Poland, where she currently lives. When she was five years old, her family escaped to West Berlin. After high school, she moved to New York City to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and The Neighborhood Playhouse. She performed at the Off-Broadway Manhattan Ensemble Theater. She received her MA in Visual Arts at Columbia University in New York, NY (2017).

Medyńska has opened recent solo exhibitions at Muzeum Ziemi in Międzyrzecz, Poland; Pilipczuk Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark; Artinfo Gallery in Warsaw, Poland; Jedlitschka Gallery in Zurich, Switzerland; and elsewhere.

She is a three-time award recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant.