During the Long Night of Museums, the LKW Gallery (a lorry jammed under the flyover on Szopy Street) will be handed over to young Gdańsk-based artist Julia Tymańska. Tymańska, a graduate of the Faculty of Painting, Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, works with broadly understood visual arts, often exploring the thin line between the alluring and the tasteless. She tries to go beyond the canvas, breaking away from traditional values, yet without losing the essence of painting. She does not want to be limited by subject or form in her actions. She takes up everyday narratives, combining elements of (sub)cultural zones familiar to her, and treats her works like casual small talk.
This is how the artist describes her work created for Windows 2022:
"The main element of the exhibition is a painted object modeled on a bottle of Coke, or its cheaper alternative, Cola, presented in solidified form – still a product, but already a piece of rubbish. The crushed bottle with some of the drink still inside, displayed in the LKW Gallery window, draws attention to our active participation in a consumerist culture. Pop-a-cola is a follow-up to my graduation series Shindig, a set of various objects inspired by pop cultural icons. Pop is also the name used to denote fizzy drinks in the American North and Mid-West."
Julia Tymańska was born on 6 October 1997 in Gdańsk. In June 2021, she graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts. Since 2017, her works have been shown at many solo exhibitions, including a post-residency show at Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art, as well as group exhibitions, most notably at Boomer Gallery, London. Tymańska has also received several awards, including the Śmietański Prize at the Young Painting from Gdańsk. Graduation Works 2019–2021 exhibition, the award of the Mayor of Legnica and Szum Magazine in the PROMOCJE Nationwide Young Painting Review, the Łaźnia CCA award in the Wojciech Fangor Nationwide Painting Competition and the #RYSOWAĆ International Student Drawing Exhibition. She was also a two-time recipient of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage scholarship for significant achievements. Apart from painting, she is involved in the development of grassroots initiatives in Gdańsk. In 2020, together with Sebastian Cichocki, she founded the Pawlacz Gallery – a not-for-profit contemporary art gallery that promotes local artists.
https://www.instagram.com/bananowafontanna
https://www.facebook.com/tymanska/
Photo: Julia Tymanska's archive.