Shahnaz Aghayeva
Azerbaijan, b. 1984

Shahnaz Aghayeva (b.1984) is an Azerbaijan multidisciplinary artist lives and works in Bodrum, Turkey.

Shahnaz defines herself as a woman artist whose practice challenges the fundamental societal roles imposed on women. Her work acts as a form of protest, seeking to reveal the nuanced and often hidden dimensions of the female experience - frequently misrepresented or oversimplified through the lens of the male gaze, particularly within Eastern cultural contexts. She seeks to reveal the aspects of female experience that only women truly know - layers of reality that are often hidden or ignored.

Shahnaz’s art features exclusively female figures, often depicted with the hair is always tied up - a visual symbol of constant busyness and responsibility. The large, rounded lower female forms represent a child’s perspective, gazing upward at women. From this low viewpoint distorts the proportions: the heads appear much smaller in comparison. Translated into art, this distortion becomes a form of admiration and reverence.

The portrayal of the female figure from this perspective, regardless of the artist's take on femininity or art itself, creates a sense of elevation. It sends a message to the viewer: to look at the feminine form as something sacred and idealised.

Moving between abstraction and figuration, her stylised nude forms are classically composed but disrupted by shifts in scale and perspective. These distortions reflect the fluidity of female identity and sexual autonomy as society evolves toward more inclusive understandings of gender.