Ewa Kuryluk (1946), CHUSTA 5, 1980s

ink/cotton, 100 x 74 cm
on the back a patch with author's description: EWA KURYLUK / TUCH 5 / 100 x 74 cm

Painter, illustrator, author of installations, art historian and writer. She completed her art studies at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1970. Her early paintings are part of the trend of new figuration and hyperrealist tendencies. In 1979 she published a book "Hyperrealism - New Realism." Kuryluk's work speaks of everyday life and is largely autobiographical. An important place in it is occupied by issues of the body and sexuality. In addition to traditional easel painting, the artist realized drawing installations. Since the late 1970s, she has drawn nude figures on pieces of fabric (cotton, silk), from which she created installations in galleries and outdoors. In turn, the images of faces applied to fabric allude to the biblical motif of the shawl of Saint Veronica with the likeness of Christ. As a result of her historical interest in this subject, the author wrote an essay "Veronica and Her Veil. History, symbolism and the structure of the 'true image'" (1991; Polish-language edition - 1998). In her creative work, the artist's photographic self-portraits, which she calls "Self-Photographs," served as the starting material.
Ewa Kuryluk's solo exhibition "I, White Kangaroo"("I, White Kangaroo") was among the official events accompanying the 59th Venice Art Biennale in 2022. The exhibition was organized by the Starak Family Foundation.