Julia Curylo is a visual artist, representing a generation of Central and Eastern European (Polish) artists born in the 1980s. She is an author of paintings and installations exhibited in the public space of the city. She graduated The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and in 2021 she received her PhD in the same institution.
She is a prolific artist who won a number of competitions and contest. The most well-know of them is the contest organized by A19 Gallery in 2010, located in Marymont subway station in Warsaw. Curylo’s participation resulted in the exhibition of a large-format mural entitled “Lams of God” in the subway, becoming on of her most recognizable and discussed works. In the same year, Curylo received the Grand Prix awarded by The Minister of Culture and National Heritage as well as the award of BWA City Gallery in Bydgoszcz during the annual contest in Art Gallery in Legnica titled PROMOTION. Curylo has been a notable figure on the art market for many years. She has participated in over 60 exhibitions in Poland and abroad while constantly improving her skills. During an extended period of time, she had been working on a cycle of paintings inspired by cosmic themes and the presence of science in modern pop culture, called “space series”. The reproductions of the paintings and a collection of essays about Curyło’s work were published in a book entitled The Co(s)mic Painting of Reality in the Art of Julia Curyło by Unicorn Publishing Group in 2021.
Julia Curylo creates paintings, sculptures, and installations, many designed as public space projects, with intertwined references to religion ( “Church Fairs and miraculous visions “ series), consumerism , women’s art history( “Chicks” installation), science and technology (“Large Hadron Collider” series), migrations (“Euro-series) and kitsch. Her works are strongly sensual and energetic , address ambiguities of the contemporary world .
The paintings by Julia Curyło, brimming with symbolism, hyper-realistic and surreal at the same time, addresses the issues of broadly understood contemporaneity and modernity. Curyło is interested in the ambiguity of the world — devotion juxtaposed next to perversity, childishness to maturity, morality to licentiousness, truth to falsity, or beauty next to kitsch. The origins of her work can be found mainly in surrealism and neo-pop. Julia Curyło’s art is oriented toward intellectual reception — symbolism used by the artist is difficult to decipher during the initial encounter, it encourages contemplation and decipherment of riddles and hidden meanings, which are often full of irony and eventually prompt a smile.
EDUCATION
2009 MFA in painting with an annex in art in public space, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland
INDIVIDUAL EXHIBITIONS
2023 — The Bride , Unicorn and other words, Biegas Gallery, Warsaw
— Floating in the air, Julia Curylo, Emilia Bogucka, Plocka Gallery, Płock
— The Bride Stripped Bare (or not) by Her Bachelors, Galeria Miejsce Sztuki 44,
Świnoujście
2021 — Cosmogonies, Biegas Museum, Warsaw
2020 — Weightlessness, Wozownia Gallery, Toruń
2019 — Desert project, Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles
2018 — My cosmogonies, Stalowa Gallery, Warsaw
— Utopia Images, Miejsce Sztuki 44, Świnoujście
— Metaphysical Visions, Physics and Applied CS Institute, Nicolaus
Copernicus University, Toruń
2017 — Surreal Visions, Italian Art Factory, Pietrasanta, Italy
— Artist Speaks, Adam Smith Center, Warsaw
— Cudawianki, Galeria (-1), The Olympic Center, Warsaw
— Paintings, BWA Gallery, MOS, Gorzów Wielkopolski
2016 — Miraculous Visions, Scena Gallery, Koszalin
— Miraculous Visions, Galeria Miejsce Sztuki 44, Świnoujście
2015 — Wonderful Stories, Zamek Gallery, Reszel
2014 — Eurorabia Julia Curyło/Liza Sherzai, Fass Gallery, Sabanci University,
Istanbul
2013 — Hello Modernity, City Gallery in Wrocław, Wrocław
— Divine Element 8-14 TEV, BWA in Bydgoszcz, Bydgoszcz
— Temptations, wonders, and delights, Biała Gallery, Lublin
2012 — H0 Element, aTAK Gallery, Warsaw
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 — Nord Art, Büdelsdorf, Kunstwerk Carlshütte
— Women Art Power, Galeria Elektrownia, Radom
— BlafemINistki, Galeria Domu Norymberskiego, Kraków
2021 — The land of the forefathers of youth singing, Galeria Miejsce Sztuki 44,
Świnoujście
— Freedom, I love and understand, Łaźnia Gallery, Radom
2020 — Mojave Madness, Yucca Valley Visual and Performing Arts Center, CA
2019 — Compass of art, 2019, Biegas Museum, Warszawa
— Out of Poland, Arena 1Gallery, Los Angeles
— Robinson Ship, Museum of Architecture, Wrocław
2018 — 2018 Young Art Compass, Galeria (-1), The Olympic Center, Warsaw
— Lejanías, arte joven polaco en la colección de K. Musiał, Centre del Carme,
Valencia
— Spring Dreams, Biała Gallery, Lublin
— Five Prudent Maidens and One Reckless Man, City Gallery in Wrocław,
Wrocław
— Multiple Space, Tamarin Art Centre, Mauritius
2017 — 2017 Young Art Compass, Galeria (-1), The Olympic Center, Warsaw
— Art Work, Art Arsenal, Kiev, Ukraine
— 2017 Young Art Compass, (-I) Gallery, Warsaw
— Krak-Art, Vienna Woods, Los Angeles C.A, USA
2016 — 2016 Young Art Compass, Galeria (-1), The Olympic Center, Warsaw
— Euroarabia. Paradise, Exile, Inferno, JCE Young European Art
Biennial, Hala Stulecia, Wrocław
— 2016 Art Compass, (-I) Gallery, Warsaw
— Santa Monica Art Studios show, Los Angeles, USA
— The Eagle Has Landed: Apollo 11– 45 Years Later, Wozownia Gallery, Toruń
— The Eagle Has Landed: Apollo 11– 45 Years Later, BWA Zielona Góra,
Zielona Góra
2015 — Female Painters, Biała Gallery, Lublin
— Apollo11– Eagle Has Landed, Galeria Działań, Warsaw
— Transformation Records, Płocka Gallery, Płock
2014 — Ostrale. Festival of Contemporary Art 2014, Dresden, Germany
— biala.art.pl, Biała Gallery, Lublin
— Art3 inaugural exhibition, Art3 Gallery, New York, USA
— Strange stories, Stalowa Gallery, Warsaw
AWARDS
— Nomination in the 10th Geppert Competition, 2011
— Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, 2010
— special prize awarded by BWA City Gallery in Bydgoszcz, 2010
— 1st place in A19 Competition organised by Pociąg do Sztuki Gallery,
Warsaw, 2010
COLLECTIONS
— Museum of Contemporary Art,
The Fountain, 180 × 150 cm, oil and acrylic on canvas, 2016
— National Museum in Gdańsk,
Lambs of God, 280 × 187 cm, oil on canvas, 2009
— Warsaw Rising Museum,
Warsaw Rising ‘44, 155 × 200 cm, oil on canvas, prints, airbrush, 2014
— Museum of Art in Legnica,
A Chick, the Hope of Art, 157.5 × 233 cm, oil on canvas, 2011