Julia Poziomecka

Julia Poziomecka studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and at the Faculty of Intermedia in Poznań. She produces paintings, collages, zines, and Instagram video-performances; she also writes poems. In her work, she continually returns to the theme of sexual violence, particularly one aimed at adolescent women. The paintings presented at the exhibition were created at a time when the artist herself dealt with depression and anxiety resulting from sexual abuse. Both canvasses are dominated by black, although formally they are very different. ‘Put on your Polish shoes and dance the blues’ references the raw aesthetics of graffiti, and clumsy children's drawings. The second is a painterly collage in two parts, one depicting a small figure of a young woman and the other, a boy. While the black background constitutes a common ground, it does not provide a platform for establishment of any kind of relation [between the figures]. The separate sections of the painting and their protagonists remain perfectly separate. Both images relay the psychological damage resulting from experience of sexual violence. ‘They are the expression of inner death’ — Poziomecka says.