Yasmina Nysten, Mach-1 Travel, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 120 × 150 cm

Yasmina Nysten, a Finnish/Lebanese artist, fuses figurative and conceptual art in her narrative- driven paintings. She earned a BFA from ALBA (Beirut, 2009) and an MFA from Pratt Institute (New York, 2012). Her work has been showcased internationally, including solo exhibitions like The Seven Minute Special (New York, 2009), Live @ the Crying Room (Brooklyn, 2019), and Artful Crimes (Beirut, 2023). Now based in Astoria, Oregon, Nysten’s art bridges Western and Eastern contemporary cultures, reflecting her diverse heritage. Her recent projects delve into human archetypes and the interplay between private and public spaces, drawing influence from the full spectrum of American painting. These paintings explore the intersection of personal identity and geographical presence. Through scenes from my personal memory, I engage with the complex negotiation between private and public selves. Both paintings being portrayals of my mother, one as a young woman within her newly established travel agency called Mach-1 travel and the second more recent portrayal of her on an airplane, flying back from a long trip to Spain where we saw my sister’s second daughter’s birth take place. They consider how individuals exist in visible and invisible states, through physical posture or psychological distance. The compositions are constructed around moments of stillness suggesting unspoken histories, and power dynamics between the subject and keystones of movement within one’s life. By focusing on the solitude, the work interrogates how identity is shaped and concealed in the space between reality and the movement of time and space.