Aisha Ryannon Pagnes

The works of artist Aisha Ryannon Pagnes favor materiality and bare-boned symbolism, which she develops in painting, photography, installation, and sound. Originally from Venice, Pagnes moved to Indonesia at a young age, where her natural artistic abilities earned her the highest marks in the world and Indonesia for the Cambridge exams in 2010 and 2012, respectively. In 2015, she relocated to the Netherlands to train at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunst in the department of ArtScience, previously known as Image and Sound. She has exhibited her work in Indonesia, Italy, and the Netherlands, and is now based in Den Haag, where she is a core member of the artist collective ANNASTATE. The collective is recognized for its contribution to the local art scene as an independent atelier complex and open-event platform.

In her paintings, Pagnes shows an affinity for abstraction, where the use of unconventional techniques, rich texture, and symbolic colors converge to suggest spiritual tension. This tension is carried over into her installations, where the fragility of an encounter between two individuals is emphasized. In her understanding of space and architecture, it manifests as a sensibility for the affective meaning of composition. The art behind the width, inclination, and depth of a staircase, as any other architectural element, is when the ungraspable transpires through the poetic structuring of our encounter with the world. It is within this tension that the ecstatic encounter lies, and that art, at its best, attempts to elicit. A selection of her work can be found on the following page.
Work ︎︎︎

In her philosophical writings she explores the need for art and its most essential functions in consciousness. The metaphysics of Beauty, the ethical significance of engaging with art objects, and an expanded understanding of art as meaning-making are recurrent topics of inquiry. For the past decade, she has also worked as an editor, proofreader, and translator of articles and essays on art and aesthetics. She is currently deepening her conceptual vocabulary through her studies in philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Leiden University (NL), where she focuses on German Idealism, Enlightenment Aesthetics, and Environmental Aesthetics. Examples of her published writing and contributions can be found on the following page.
Writing ︎︎︎

An extended selection of her work and her Curriculum Vitae are available upon request.
Contact ︎︎︎