Julia Medynska

Bacon Baby

Jackson’s Painting Prize 2020
Oil
Panel
106 x 53 cm

“My painting explores the psychology of the individual. 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. 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 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 intentionally keep facial features and expressions minimal to resist describing an identity. Instead, the actors become archetypes and their physical activity an allegory for psychopathological world. Each painting is a horrid secret where I can choose to lift the curtain.”