JULIA TRYBALA

Trybala has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally, including at the National Gallery of Victoria‘s exhibition Melbourne Now (2023), and is represented by STATION in Australia and Ames Yavuz in Asia.

Early life and Career

Born in 1992 in Melbourne, Australia, Julia Trybala lives and works in Melbourne and holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from RMIT University, completed in 2016. She began exhibiting regularly while still a student, with early solo shows such as Cloak (2015) at Tate Gallery in Sydney and Even Ravel (2016) at Boom Gallery in Geelong introducing her interest in fragmented bodies and stylised, pastel-hued interiors.ngv+3

Following graduation, Trybala developed a steady exhibition practice across artist-run spaces and commercial galleries, presenting solo exhibitions including Flesh / Gloss at Fort Delta (2017), Blushing at Alaska Projects, Sydney (2018), and New Paintings at Chamber Presents, Melbourne (2019). These shows gradually refined her visual language, shifting from more illustrative figuration toward densely composed, closely cropped figure studies that foreground skin, hair and fabric as interlocking planes of colour and texture.

Practice, Works and Methods

Trybala’s paintings are characterised by their tightly framed compositions, in which bodies are rarely presented in full and faces are often partially obscured or pushed to the margins of the canvas. Arms, hands, torsos and hair form looping, overlapping structures that read as both figurative and abstract, with flattened perspective and controlled colour harmonies emphasising the formal qualities of line, surface and rhythm. This approach creates a sense of intimacy that can feel at once inviting and claustrophobic, drawing viewers into close proximity with bodies that are simultaneously familiar and estranged.

In works and series such as Three Graces (presented at STATION, Melbourne, 2023) and Metabolism (Yavuz Gallery, Singapore, 2024), Trybala reimagines classical motifs and art-historical archetypes through a contemporary, feminist lens. Her figures often appear in groups of two or three, their gestures echoing and mirroring one another to suggest shifting alliances and emotional currents between subjects. The surfaces are built up through layers of oil paint that achieve a soft, almost plush quality; edges blur subtly, while details such as fingernails, strands of hair or folds of fabric are rendered with careful precision.

Trybala frequently works across scales, from modestly sized portraits to larger canvases where bodies fill the field and extend beyond the picture plane. This variation in scale supports the tension between closeness and fragmentation, allowing her to move from intimate, almost diaristic images to compositions that feel more emblematic or archetypal. Throughout, she maintains a focus on gesture and touch—the ways bodies lean, clasp, rest and strain—as a primary vehicle for emotional storytelling.

Themes and Context

At the core of Trybala’s practice is an exploration of intimacy and the emotional dynamics of close relationships, often filtered through personal experience and conversations with friends and family. Her paintings examine how bodies carry and communicate feeling—care, desire, anxiety, exhaustion—through posture and proximity rather than explicit narrative. The ambiguity of her scenes, which rarely specify a concrete setting, keeps attention on these emotional and relational currents rather than on external plot.

The politics of the feminine body in space is central to her work, in which female and feminine-coded figures occupy the majority of the pictorial field. By cropping and recomposing these bodies, Trybala refuses conventional full-length or idealised portraiture, instead presenting bodies as lived, felt and partial—sites of care, vulnerability and mutual support. Her practice can be situated within contemporary figurative painting that foregrounds gender, intimacy and subjectivity, aligning her with a wider generation of artists revisiting the figure through lenses of feminism and lived experience.

Exhibitions and Recognition

Julia Trybala has developed a strong exhibition history across Australia and internationally, with solo exhibitions including Hold a Body Together at STATION, Melbourne (2021), Three Graces at STATION, Melbourne (2023), and Metabolism at Yavuz Gallery, Singapore (2024). Earlier solo shows include Cry Baby at Discordia Gallery, Melbourne (2020), Room at Saint Cloche, Sydney (2020), and Blushing at Alaska Projects, Sydney (2018).

She has participated in significant group exhibitions and art fairs, such as Melbourne Now at the National Gallery of Victoria (2023), Sydney Contemporary (multiple editions), and Yellow Wallpaper at STATION, Melbourne (2021). Trybala was a finalist in the 2021 Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Award, and her work is held in the Artbank collection in Australia, as well as numerous private collections. Her ongoing relationship with STATION and Ames Yavuz reflects her growing profile within the broader landscape of contemporary figurative painting in the region.

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Ocula | 2026