With the first position in the exhibition series „Do you want it black or white?“, the Roland Phleps Foundation for Concrete Art opens its program in 2026 with the Munich artist Julia Shevalie (*1988 in Krasilovka, Kazakhstan). Under the title „The Matter of Shadows“, the show focuses on her current paintings and drawings, in which the interplay of material, color and structure finds its concentrated form in the square.
Julia Schewalie has developed new groups of works for the Freiburg exhibition, characterized by precision craftsmanship and a love of experimentation. In the large-format series „Oily Drops“ and „Oily Tiles“ (each 220 × 300 cm), finely structured pictorial fields unfold from her own repeated brushstrokes, bringing out the black in all its nuances. A grid laid out in advance on the canvas determines the rhythm of the color. The artist draws on a variety of different shades of black to create a shimmering mosaic of tiny squares that subtly plays with light and reflection.
The series „Squares on Paper“ continues Julia Schewalie's exploration of the color black. 160 works in watercolor, pastel, charcoal, ink and oil on various papers (each 25.7 × 20.7 cm) explore the range from dense darkness to light glazed shades of grey. This series combines earlier material-oriented phases with the search for formal reduction and clarity on the basis of painterly techniques that are typical of her current work.
Another group of works shows pieces that belong to the artist's well-known oeuvre. Using everyday materials such as PVC, vinyl sheets, pieces of coal, pond and graphite foils and even fragrant bars of soap, Julia Schewalie explores the color black - rarely also white - as a carrier of shadow and light. Depth, surface and shine change depending on the material. Whether large-format or small, painted, sanded or glued - each work reveals the silent variation of a theme: how a color that is rarely perceived as such reveals itself as one of the most diverse in the sound of intermediate tones.
Julia Shevalie (*1988 in Krasilovka, Kazakhstan) lives and works in Munich. She came to Germany in 1996 as part of the late resettlement program and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Anke Doberauer and Hermann Pitz. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions, including at the Kunstverein Lemgo (2025). Group exhibitions have taken her to the Museum für Konkrete Kunst Ingolstadt (2022/23) and the Kunstmuseum Ahlen (2025). The Staatliche Bayerische Gemäldesammlungen acquired the first of several of her works back in 2017.