JULIA MEDYNSKA
SKIN AS WHITE AS SNOW
8 July to 9 October 2021
Opening Party: Thursday 8 July 6 to 8pm
“As white as snow and as red as blood and as black as ebony.”
- The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie
School Gallery is pleased to present Skin As White As Snow, an exhibition of fairytale inspired paintings by Julia Medyńska. Fairytales often have dark and disturbing origins and it’s this ‘darker side’ that Medyńska illuminates through her work. Heavily influenced by an acting background; Medyńska’s figurative paintings are composed narratives that explore the idea of the social mask employed in order to hide underlying psychological truths. The artist has compared her compositions to that of cinematography - as cleverly constructed film sets, alluding to the dark and uncanny in an attempt to unsettle the unwitting viewer.
Speaking about the work for Skin As White As Snow Medyńska said, “Last summer, I began a series of paintings that reimagine well-known fairytales, bringing contemporary violence into beautiful settings. I have always been interested in creating images where beauty and the macabre interact. The viewer, while seduced by an enchanted landscape, should be confronted by a violent narrative. I usually begin the process by copying and transforming beautiful historical landscape paintings. I then paint figures from vintage photographs into these fairytale landscapes.”
Julia Medyńska - born in 1981 in Gdańsk is a painter and actress. In 1985, as a little girl, Medyńska escaped with her family from Poland to West Berlin. She found an outlet for her emotions in art— artistic activities taught her how to transfer her observations to the canvas. After high school, she moved to New York to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and The Neighborhood Playhouse. Medyńska has performed at the Off-Broadway “Manhattan Ensemble Theater”. In the theater, she observed movement, poses and gestures, which are reflected in the dynamic frames of her works. In 2009, she began studying visual arts at Columbia University, earning her master’s degree. Since then, she has taken part in many group exhibitions. Medyńska received awards and distinctions for her paintings. She is a two-time award recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. Her solo exhibition Maskarada recently opened at the Muzeum Ziemi in Międzyrzecz, Poland. She is currently preparing for her 2021 solo exhibition at the Office Space Gallery in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
This is School Gallery’s first exhibition in its new purpose built space in Wimbledon and it’s first since closing in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
School Gallery supports WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation by donating a percentage of its profits to them. WDC is the leading global charity dedicated to the conservation of whales and dolphins.
With a passion for whales and dolphins and the conservation of our oceans, School Gallery believes in WDC’s aim for a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free.