JULIA CURYLO
Julia Curyło is a Polish visual artist working across painting and installation. Her practice explores the intersections of symbolism, mythology, social imaginaries, and contemporary anxieties, often combining cosmic, surreal, and politically charged motifs. Through large-scale works and immersive spatial forms, she examines systems of belief, collective memory, and the tensions between innocence and violence.
Born in Warsaw, Curyło studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she graduated in 2009 and completed her PhD in 2021.
She gained early recognition in 2010 after winning the competition organized by A19 Gallery, presenting the large-scale mural Lambs of God. In the same year, she received the Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and an award from BWA City Gallery in Bydgoszcz during the PROMOTIONS exhibition in Legnica.
Curyło has participated in more than 60 exhibitions in Poland and internationally. Her works have been presented in gallery spaces as well as public contexts, often engaging viewers through large-scale, site-responsive formats.
In 2021, Unicorn Publishing Group published her monograph The Co(s)mic Painting of Reality in the Art of Julia Curyło. In 2025, she won a nationwide competition organized by the Artinfo portal; her awarded work Lost Dreams, addressing the impact of war on childhood imagination, was exhibited at the Manes Gallery in Prague.
The painting is my contribution to the dialogue on matters of significance and triviality. I aim to endow my painting with ambiguity and complexity. The canvas, vibrant with lively colors, invites the viewer to explore the successive layers of meaning of the image. I am intrigued by the ambiguities of the world: piety juxtaposed with perversion, childishness with maturity, morality with licentiousness, religion with science or beauty with kitsch. The subjects of my works include: science and culture - both high and popular; the nature that envelops us and the civilization that devours it; as well as remote worlds, space, mythical and mysterious realms. Current issues that animate the world are also an essential element of my work. I address themes related to ecology, feminism and the broad notion of "femininity". I weave together various motifs, quotations from art history, pop culture and pop science with humor and irony, creating often absurd associations. Ultimately, however, my works express a gentle and empathic stance towards reality.
Julia C?urylo