Julija Zaharijević (b. 1991, Belgrade; based in Berlin) works primarily in large-scale figurative painting. Her paintings operate on the edge between seduction and unease—investigating how images can attract and disturb at once. She draws on human figures, everyday objects, and unfamiliar forms, often with art historical references, examining the gap between an object’s conceptual significance and its physical appearance.

Engaging the decorative, ornamental, and the notion of beauty, her paintings conceal something unsettling, suggesting layered meanings. She is interested in how the political survives inside an image, and whether it can remain present without being legible. Her compositions often orbit a center, or refuse one, challenging the stability of images and the structures through which they are interpreted.