Comprising painting and sculpture, Aks Misyuta’s (Lives and Works in Istanbul, TR) introspective practice assembles a collection of enigmatic and romantic figures captured in moments of idleness. Her “time-wasters,” as she ironically calls them, represent quiet rebels defying societal expectations. Playing with contrasts and shadows, Misyuta paints sculptural figures that seem carved into canvas. In so doing, she infuses her work with a monumentality, deftly counterbalanced by the dreamlike and ethereal quality of her compositions. Recurring motifs such as nylon tights and wristwatches with no hands serve as vehicles for the artist’s meditations on the passage of time, loss, change, and the vulnerability of existence. Merging gravity with drollness, Misyuta’s painted and sculpted characters are akin to balloons about to burst. Throughout her body of work, she converts inner concerns and emotions into seemingly tangible yet precarious entities, thereby exposing cracked social masks and fragile facades.

Recent solo exhibitions include Galerie Art : Concept, Paris (2023); Sébastien Bertrand, Geneva (2021 and 2020); and Union Pacific, London (2020). Misyuta has been part of a number of group exhibitions, including Heroic Bodies, Tegners Museum, Dronningmølle (2022); Corpo e Mente, curated by Lawrence Van Hagen, Palazzo Barbaro (2022); Around The World, Around The World, curated by William Leung, Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong (2021); Sweet Jane in Fields of Daisies, curated by Joan Tucker, Phillips, New York (2021); and New Work Part III: Subject, Cob Gallery, London (2018). Her work has entered the Public Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Buenos Aires, as well as the collection of the X Museum, Beijing and the Niarchos Collection, Paris.

Claire DUCRESSON-BOËT