The Co(s)mic Picture of Reality in the Art of Julia Curyło is both a collection of essays about the work of Julia Curyło and an album of works by the artist representing a generation of Central and Eastern European artists born in the 1980s. The central part of the book is an essay by Joanna Paneth, an art historian and graduate of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. Paneth provides an in-depth analysis of Curyło’s selected paintings from a series focusing on space and existential themes. The author discusses the artist’s work in a broader cultural context, referring to the history of art, religion and philosophy and introduces the relatively new current reflected in the artist’s work: space art.

The author Joanna Paneth write: ‘The entire book is a journey. Curyło takes us on an unforgettable adventure. We begin on Earth amid the surrounding reality, moving slowly towards the solar system, where planets and space probes and galaxies await us. We go deeper into space to end our adventure even further: among biblical figures and to learn the genesis of the Universe’s creation. At each stage of our journey all the elements, people and space are interconnected and together form an uninterrupted narrative continued in the subsequent works of the artist.’