Born in socialist Poland, her family managed to escape to West Berlin in 1985. At 19, Julia moved to New York to study acting, enrolling at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the Neighborhood Playhouse. She performed at the Off-Broadway Manhattan Ensemble Theatre. Subsequently, in 2009, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts, and her Master Of Fine Arts Degree (M.F.A.) from Columbia University (New York). Medynska is a recipient of an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Fellowship. Heavily influenced by her experience as an actress, Julia's figurative paintings are narratives that explore the psychology of the individual and the social mask as a concealment of underlying psychological truths. Her recent painting has extended from individual portraits to large-scale narratives. She composes environments where characters engage in violent acts while apathetic onlookers witness the macabre scene. In her paintings, Julia sees herself as a filmmaker who composes narratives from unrelated source images to develop a dramatic scene of great wonder. She looks for her "actors" in old black and white photographs or film stills. Inspired by her body languages, the artist invents a story. She takes the scenery of her paintings from 19th century landscape paintings or from a film still. The actors become archetypes and their physical activities allegories of a psychopathological world.