Finnish/Lebanese artist painter Yasmina Nysten attended ALBA (Academie Libanaise des Beaux-arts) in Beirut Lebanon receiving a BFA in Visual Arts in 2009 and an MFA in Digital Arts: 3D Animation from Pratt Institute in New York City in 2012. She has exhibited her work in shows such as “Nafas Beirut” (Espace SD), Ayyam gallery Dubai’s “Young Collectors Auctions”, “From Beirut Art and Design Scene” Piasa (Paris) and “Jabal” Fransabank (Beirut).

Her 2009 solo show “The Seven Minute Special” at Kleio Projects in New York consisted of large format works on paper depicting individuals in a contorted figurative style. These works were meant as experiments in asymmetry as reflected in the human form. Nysten has attempted to adapt this stylistic language into a larger theoretical artistic axiom by which her thoughts may be reexperienced through the anamorphic properties of her jagged lines.
Her solo show “Live @ the Crying Room” which took place in 2019 at Tornado Things Gallery in Brooklyn NY was composed of paintings and drawings depicting cinematic urban scenes set amidst occurrences of everyday miracles, whose occurrence most often manifests in ways too subtle to be readily observed and thus are akin to a kind of universal secret, available to all but accessed by few.

Nysten’s 2023 solo exhibition entitled “Artful Crimes” at Mark Hachem Gallery (Beirut) was an in depth exploration of the black market in all of its global manifestations as well as its many shadowy expressions. Taking the form of large format figurative paintings which depict, at times, largely illustrative scenarios as well as mainly metaphorical representations of the selfsame topic. These paintings were joined by a subsection entitled “Malpractice”, an exploration of the world of black market medical malpractices. She chose to represent this theme in the form of images of empty post- trauma operation rooms brought forth in bright colors and cast amid an auspicious absence of any particular individuals. This marked the artist’s first foray into a fully “figure free” format. Another section of the show consisted of a series of paintings she calls “Bosta”, a Lebanese slang term meaning “bus”. A few of these pieces were painted in collaboration with an Astoria-based artist, the duo known collectively by the moniker of “die Famous”. The artist employed an impulsive form to both the application of paint as well as to the preparative process of artistic aforethought. The style of this work was profoundly influenced by the artist’s deep and abiding passion for the East Coast American art world of the 80s and 90s. Additionally, these works attempt to express the artist’s own experience moonlighting as a muralist on the streets of Wynwood Miami. Prior to both the “Bosta” and the “Black Market” series, Nysten amassed a body of work which she called the “Charlies”, figurative works with an expressionistic feel. These works tackled such explosive topics as the Lebanese and American political protests which have taken place over the last quarter century as well as their concomitant subcultural trends as embodied by individuals whose work has impacted the culture through non-mainstream channels.

After “Artful Crimes”, the artist immediately dove into a new series, consisting primarily of portraiture, while tackling the broader theme of Human Archetypes, particularly as embodied by “the Villain” archetype. The inspiration for this series came in the form of a commission requesting that the artist produce a set of 3 distinct portraits of the legendary German actor Udo Kier, who has primarily portrayed villains in the course of his long and storied career. This series was further affected by the artist’s own deep and frequent connection to local vaudevillian actors, with whom she frequently collaborates and associates in her daily life as a resident of Astoria, Oregon. This has led the artist to a broader conceptual idea about the world as being little more than a Potemkin village whose misleading facade is populated by actors depicting individuals reduced to the barest essentials of their character whose function or purpose exists only as it relates to the furtherance of a larger storyline, the precise nature of which is mysterious and enigmatic.

The artist continues to keep very close ties to her native country of Lebanon as she is continually exploring topics related to the region. Having had pieces acquired by notable foundations such as the Dalloul Art Foundation, Nysten maintains an open dialogue with the regional agents and ambassadors of Middle Eastern culture. One principal contribution the artist has made to the preservation and proliferation of Arab art comes in the form of “Cultural Narratives”, a growing collection of artworks by artists from the Arab world and the MENA region for which the artist has served as director and curator since its inception in 2013. The Cultural Narratives collection has been shown in various institutions and is developing into a worldwide project, for which Nysten continues to oversee the integration of artists from the Arab diaspora, in particular those residing within the United States.