Like our personality, our reality is not static but in a state of constant shift and change. Nothing is as it appears. A change in perspective sometimes changes everything. This is a mesmerizing aspect of the works of Julia Schewalie, which have an inherently ephemeral and fleeting quality often juxtaposed with a perplexingly unusual use of materials. What at first glance seems to be a perfectly monochrome is, upon closer examination, much more variagated. All of her works unfold in relationship to their surroundings and depend on the light, shadows, movement in their given environments. The way they continuously change their appearance characterizes appeal. The way the surfaces alternate with the light lends the works a dynamic quality; something is put in motion by the viewers and their shifting positions or the change of lighting conditions in the space.
–from “Beneath the Surface - On the works of Julia Schewalie” by Anna Wondrak (art historian M.A.)
Julia Schewalie’s works are the result of a process of fragmentation that began on canvas and, since 2009, has led to a gradual dissolution of the figure in her work. To overcome what she saw as the apparent stasis of painting, she experimented with various
materials, such as cement and shellack, and she produced silkscreens inspired by material studies from Art Informel. Through means of sculpture, she ultimately integrated the element of movement into her work in 2010/2011 and produced her first black
paintings.
Julia Schewalie was born in 1988 in Krasilovka, in the region of Pawlodar in the Kazakh SSR, today the Republic of Kazakhstan, and she came to Germany in 1996 when her family was repatriated due to its German heritage. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich
from 2009 to 2015 with Anke Doberauer and Hermann Pitz. She graduated with a “Diplom” in Fine Art. Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Russia, Great Britain, Poland, the Netherlands, and Austria. She has not only received two residency fellowships (Center for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, Poland, in 2018 and Vila Paula, Klenová, Czech Republic, 2021), but her works have also been purchased by the Bavarian State Painting Collection in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, she was the winner of the Kunstverein Aichach Art Fellowship.