Critique to exhibition in Arte Sol galerie on 15. September 2015 in Solothurn

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«Humankind - from oneself to being»

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Humankind! Mans emotion is the defining theme of the young artist Julia Moniewski. Through her art she shows us the diversity of human expressions deep in humans inner psyche and the personal stories and inner worlds gathered by her own experiences and feelings. Her art allows us to stop and contemplate. Stories ignite the imagination and can describe many different human facets: loneliness, disunity, fragility, but also the erotic and sensual, the radiance of a body, beauty and wildness, and yes the resistance of humankind, anger, energy, fierce or violent emotions - and, of course, Mans artistic expression - which can certainly be understood as one of humankinds defining characteristic’s.

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Julia Moniewski, born in Poland in 1985, has been living in Switzerland for five years, has lived in the canton of Solothurn for two years and has been living in the city of Solothurn for one month. In addition to studying architecture, she can look back on a profound, artistic education. She graduated from high school for art and music, and later attended numerous drawing and painting courses, such as human being in figure and nude drawing, painting, perspective and figurative drawing, oil painting and head drawing. Artistic studies that are reflected in her visual world. 

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Julia Moniewski calls Tamara de Lempicka, the legendary Polish painter of Art Deco, as a source of inspiration. It was also through the artistic inspiration of Tamara de Lempicka which led her to the large-format paintings in oil and acrylic. But Julia Moniewski has developed her own style. While with certain postures and interpretation of facial expressions, the nature of Julia's portraits may remind you of Tamara de Lempicka. In contrast to the Lempicka, which combines a cool aestheticised objectivity with a peculiar sensuality and certain cubist echoes, Julia Moniewski lives out an expressive as well as expressionistic intention in her pictures. Humanity is inspired by aesthetics, the effect of striking colours such as green, blue, yellows, red - in conjunction with refined mixed nuances, especially the interplay of these colours, energetically applied to human bodies, faces, postures - vivid emotions are formed out of light and shadow. It can tell a story of love, distance, fear, pride and vulnerability. No time, no space, no decorations are needed: the stories and moments stand alone.

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Julia Moniewski paints by model, photographs of her subject or from her own imagination. Her color-intensive works exude an energetic intensity and "personal" intimacy. In the truest sense of the word, one can speak of an embodiment of emotions. When Julia lets her mostly young and beautiful images of humanity, with the stroke of a brush and her own feelings, become approachable: the man alone in the restaurant, two glasses point to the last hope of society; the young woman, fully aware of her sensuality, the combative young blonde, who despite nudity is a strong "wolf,” in the emotional world, is just a "journey to the inside.” Yes, Julia Moniewski shows, despite all the "combative" melancholy that is within her own artwork, that the "power comes from within" - and Man is always a sensual, emotional being. 

 

Eva Buhrfeind, September 2015