Biography
Adelisa Selimbašić is an Italian-Bosnian artist living and working in Milan, in a cultural and artistic context that has influenced and continues to influence her work. Her artistic research aims to narrate and explore the dynamics of cultural relativism through body language. She seeks to create a universe that challenges the sense of inadequacy to which we are accustomed, creates space for acceptance and inclusion, and invites the audience to reflect on their preconceptions. In her paintings, we find female representations embedded in contexts that are as mundane as they are surreal.
They are faceless, undefined bodies rendered through a photographic cut that refers to the social format, a place par excellence where the ideals of beauty we tend to follow are further solidified. This type of composition gives the viewer a sense of familiarity and allows him to approach more easily the works and the bodies represented, which are often faceless. In this way, there is no specific identity, but rather multiple subjectivities.
In Selimbašić’s oeuvre female representations within everyday situations are paired with oneiric details. This tension is underlined by the artist through her use of color in which, after a careful observation of reality, chromatisms are successively radicalized to give surfaces a sculptural tactility. In fact, during her residency in Via Farini Milan, a subtle mutation in her oeuvre can be perceived as a more vibrant color palette. This use of color is at the service of one of the central interests of Selimbašić’s painting: to shift the perception of the female body from a conventional view and to propose a new point of view: that of the female gaze, namely, the gaze of the female painter in which the imperfect beauty of naked women in nature and the erotism they convey challenge the normative cultural perception of the exposure of the female body in public settings. However, the representation of gender within Selimbašić’s works is not to be understood literally as a political stand, but aimed at generating awareness of what the female world and sexuality are. As she declares: «I don’t define myself as a feminist, rather as an artist who wants to redefine, through painting, with all those acts and attitudes repeated over time that have led us to produce the illusion of a fixed and determined gender identity, and of the body as a passive medium branded by it.»
Recent exhibitions include Perché è così difficile dichiararsi? IPERCUBO Gallery, Milan, 2023; Up-coming Adelisa Selimbašić and Azuki Furuya at Fridman gallery in New York; Sassigrafa, at Marsèll Paradise in Milan.
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Parole di pelle at Villa Ottelio Savorgnan; Frammenti da lontano, at Mazzoli Gallery; Un segreto per pochi- recognizing oneself inside a portrait at ArchiVitali. Adelisa Selimbašić has also collaborated with various institutions and magazines, including Posh Magazine, for which she produced an editorial video on the FW22 collections
Her works are in several private and institutional collections, including those of Oliviero Falconi, Lorenzo Spinelli, Ernesto Esposito, and Soho House.
Adelisa Selimbašić’s works have received recognition and awards, including the Finalist Combat Prize, the Finalist Carnello Prize, and the Finalist Sunny Art Prize London.
Graduated in Visual Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy.
Works
Perché è così difficile dichiararsi?
Mi piaci
Da sola
Caramellina
Senza lattosio
