Dimensions: 28 x 28 x 26 cm
Metallurgical glass, hand-molded
Biography
Julia Ciułek (b. 2000, Dąbrowa Górnicza) - visual artist working mainly with glass, whose material and symbolic potential is central to her practice. She graduated with a degree in Glass Art and Design from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, where she defended her bachelor's degree with distinction in 2023 and completed her master's degree in 2025. Her master's degree was nominated for the competitive exhibition "Art of Passage '25 - Best Diplomas of the Academy of Fine Arts", receiving the Award of ZPAP Wrocław.
Her works have been presented at numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad - including the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Italy and the United States. She won third place at the international exhibition EVOLUTION 2024 organized by the Glass Art Society, as well as second place, Silver Palette and laureates' honorable mention in the Inspirations 2024 competition. She is a finalist in the international competitions Blue Sky Award 2025, MilanoVetro-35 and a multiple finalist in the Stanislav Libenský Award.
Her work has been recognized with, among others, the UrbanGlass scholarship in New York, an art scholarship from the President of Wroclaw and multiple Scholarships from the Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. She has participated in about 40 exhibitions, competitions and international symposia devoted to glass art, consistently building her presence on the international scene of contemporary glass art.
Julia Ciułek's work grows out of her daily observation of reality and is a reflection on tensions, inequalities and systemic mechanisms affecting individual experience. The artist is interested in the space of the interface between the private and the common - the moment when individual emotions become intertwined with the social context. Her realizations do not have the character of an explicit commentary; rather, they function as fields of reflection and dialogue, opening up the possibility of building empathy and asking questions about the condition of the contemporary subject.
Working mainly with glass, she treats it not as a passive medium, but as an autonomous entity with its own logic and rhythm. He bases the creative process on attentiveness and cooperation with the matter - the glass responds, resists, sometimes transforms the original assumptions. In this relationship, control gives way to trust, and form is born in the space between the plan and the reaction of the material. Unpredictability here becomes not a mistake, but the essence of dialogue - a record of the encounter between intention and living, dynamic matter.
