Julie Rafalski

In her work, Rafalski re-examines the output of artists, architects and designers of the modernist era. At the core of Rafalski’s practice is a playfulness and deadpan humour which manifests itself in misquoting certain artists’ visual language or entering into a visual dialogue with well-known artworks.

She creates playful dialogues with the visual language of modernist artworks, recontextualising them by adding another layer of meaning. She often reuses printed ephemera that document pieces of art or buildings. Many of her images are sourced from art history books and encyclopaedias. She intervenes in these images in different ways, often by fragmenting the image, folding it, changing its scale, or playing with its display. Her pieces constitute a remixing of material, forging new, playful connections and restagings of modernist works. Rafalski invokes the ghosts of the modernist era, inviting them to join her in conversation.