Adelisa Selimbašić

Drawing on the visual familiarity of photography and social media, Adelisa Selimbašić’s paintings explore bodily representation, intimacy and femininity, using closely observed scenes of everyday life to challenge conventional perceptions of the body. Her compositions depict figures at rest, in conversation or physical contact, often cropping and obscuring her subjects so that individual identities give way to a broader sense of shared experience. Faces remain indistinct, while bodies overlap, press against one another or extend beyond the edges of the canvas, transforming her subjects into generational archetypes rather than individual portraits. Through heightened colour and recurring moments of physical touch, Selimbašić considers themes of attraction, sisterhood and human connection, using the body as both subject and formal structure to propose a fluid and unconventional vision of femininity.

Adelisa Selimbašić was born in 1996 in Germany, and earned her Master’s in Painting from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts in 2021. In 2023, she was awarded the Untitled Art Fountainhead Residency Artist Prize, and in 2024 was a finalist for the Premio Cairo. Solo exhibitions include Sassigrafa, Marsèll Paradise, Milan (2023); Dust Bunny, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome (2024); The Space in Between, Tommaso Calabro Gallery, Milan (2025); Samo za moje occhi, Manifesto Gallery, Sarajevo (2025); The Dancefloor, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome (2026); and Where We Become Each Other, Lubov Gallery, New York (2026). Selected group exhibitions include Immaculate Heart of Margaritaville, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Soft Focus, Bradley Ertaskiran Gallery, Montreal (2024); An Average Comet, Harkawik Gallery, New York (2024); Embodied Narratives, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York (2026); and More Than This, Pinacoteca Nazionale Bologna, Bologna (2026). Her work is held in the Sandretto Foundation, Maramotti-MaxMara Collection and Soho House Rome Collection. Selimbašić currently lives and works in New York.