Cyclical Space of Time

Julita Malinowska | The Przypkowski Museum in Jędrzejów |

25 April – 21 June 2026 |

Julita Malinowska’s exhibition is also the first presentation of her triptych Ecstasy. The work was created in March and April 2026. This latest piece is also an artistic statement expressed in the fullest possible voice: I am here and now; I see, I feel, I react and I paint like this. However, for me, having been familiar with Julita Malinowska’s work for years, the process of arriving at this statement is fascinating.

It is worth recalling here the works Gestures IV and Gestures V from the early days of the artist’s career. On the beach, children absorbed in the moment of play, in free movement, in the carefree existence of the present moment of childhood.

We look on as observers, validated by the beach setting, contemplating the silhouettes of the children’s bodies. There is in their bodies the freedom of the nakedness of Paradise before the Fall, experienced without any sense of shame. The bodies are dynamic, the movement almost exaggerated, but the lack of detail suggests the gaze of an eye previously dazzled by the sun: the outline of the figures is thus somewhat hieroglyphic. The observer-artist (and the viewer along with her) smiles at the scene from above and from a distance. The distance is clear; these are not the observer’s children (the experience of motherhood will only become a reality for the artist in the future) – we can sense an element of voyeurism, heightened by cultural and ethnic distance and orientalism, as if borrowed from Gauguin. 

Untitled – an even earlier work, specifically three paintings arranged as a triptych, is precisely a well-constructed composition. The observer is slightly closer, but the children’s figures remain devoid of individuality, whilst the setting is brought into sharper focus – the context of a beautiful beach with light sand and the shore of a calm sea. The horizon remains above the frame. The viewer’s eye looks down slightly from above. As early as 2005, at the very beginning of her artistic journey, Julita was drawn to monumentalism. The subject is charming, perfectly painted; it hypnotises and at the same time is somewhat unsettling: does the gaze overplay the purity of the gesture, does it sexualise the children’s bodies, is simply being on the beach enough to appropriate nudity as a subject? But this is a reflection born of the present day.

The next two works, Fragment and Ecstasy, created 20 years later, are similarly captivating, yet closer, more overt and more direct. The observer stands close to the subject; subject and object become one, part of the action takes place outside the frame. The space is defined solely by the body in motion; the movement is highly dramatised, gravity somewhat enigmatic, unclear. In Fragment (where we still have a flat background-abyss), we can interpret the fall of the crouching figure and the drama of the scream. The silhouette-hieroglyph, thanks to its decidedly asymmetrical composition reminiscent of Breughel’s The Fall of Icarus, is a new sign of the script, the invention of which began in 2005.

In Ecstasy, the artist goes further: she no longer needs to specify the background, nor does she introduce a pretext On this subject, it focuses on observation – an analysis of the body, stripped of aestheticisation, presenting detail with almost anatomical precision and no longer obscuring individuality. The triptych is mesmerising, even stunning in its dynamism, the pathos of the poses, the directness and accuracy of the depiction. And here we are dealing with a vivid, multiplied self-portrait. The gaze is as if from below and very close up; planes and movement intermingle, gestures and grimaces are like captured freeze-frames.

It is also the first work in which the artist admits the viewer into the creative process. We are able to trace the hesitations, the omissions: she does not paint over the traces of doubt, of retreat; she reveals the sketch on the canvas, does not refine certain threads, whilst overdrawing others. Strong emotions and tensions arise between the figures. The drama of the depiction reaches an almost religious level, yet condemnation is decidedly absent here – the movement lies beyond final judgement. We imbue our gaze – our horizon has been broadened by the truth presented in a new order. 

Nudity here is not validated by the male gaze. This is a female portrayal of female power, not subject to the valuation or aestheticisation of weakness. Subject and object become equally valid. The vision of conformism is relegated to a corner outside the composition. The truth of the confrontation of the self with the self is acknowledged. And we, as viewers, cease to yearn for the lost paradise of childhood, for we gain self-awareness and already know that to experience the essence of life we must experience, within the cyclical flux of time, delight and uncertainty; falls and rises; torments and ecstasy. 

Curator | Ona Winogrodzka

Julita Malinowska – born in 1979, lives and works in Warsaw. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (2005) in the studio of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk. In 2012, she obtained her PhD at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. She also studied at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK and at the Faculty of Arts of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. She has received scholarships from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the City of Cracow and the Pro Artibus Foundation in Finland. She has presented her work at 44 solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Her works are held in private collections in Europe, Japan and the United States, as well as in the National Museums in Gdańsk and Poznań. Currently, her works can be seen at the LOVE exhibition at the National Museum in Kielce.