STAVANGER.- Kunsthall Stavanger presents Fatebe Shadows, the first Scandinavian solo exhibition by acclaimed painter Ebecho Muslimova. The exhibition showcases her vibrant and provocative character ‘Fatebe’, and features newly commissioned paintings created by the artist specifically for Kunsthall Stavanger.

At the core of Muslimova’s practice is a fascination with the archetype of the Trickster; a mythological character who crosses boundaries, disrupts norms, and through disorder asks us to reconsider our fixed notions of order and identity. Drawing from mythological and Jungian concepts of the trickster, Muslimova uses Fatebe to peel back the subconscious and reveal the creative potential residing in what we often try to suppress.

At Kunsthall Stavanger, Fatebe Shadows unfolds as a vivid exploration of the individual and collective subconscious through the figure of Fatebe as she moves through shadowed interiors and psychic spaces, including several of the Kunsthall’s own galleries. This collection of drawings and paintings captures fleeting moments in the life of Fatebe, where she inhabits rooms and stages that become sites of multiplicity, ritual, and drama.

Ebecho Muslimova, born in Russia in 1984 and based between New York and Mexico city, is a painter whose work is dedicated to the representation of her alter ego “Fatebe.” Fatebe challenges notions around identity, the body, and its representation. Fatebe embodies a transgressive and unflinching exploration of the human form, navigating through themes of anxiety, pleasure, and absurdity. Muslimova’s painting style teases virtuosity as it is confronted with both drawn and graphic elements, making her work at once humorous and serious.

Since Graduating from the Cooper Union in 2010, Muslimova has since continued to exaggerate the human form in Fatebe, to achieve an unapologetic embodiment of shamelessness. Her distinctive features (including abstract depictions of the body’s orifices) emerge not as acts of provocation, but as an invitation to rethink how we view the active, uninhibited body. Her genitalia, rendered in cartoonish detail, are not shocking for shock’s sake, but reflect a liberated view of sexuality.

Much of Muslimova’s work plays with the tensions between bodily freedom and the discomfort it often generates in the viewer. Whether depicted in her ink drawings or graphically rendered paintings, Fatebe exists in a world where humiliation, playfulness, and resilience coexist. These images resist clear categorization, with Fatebe often caught in paradoxical scenarios that highlight both the ridiculousness of life and art, and the challenges of emotional and physical survival.

Muslimova’s exploration of space and scale became more pronounced after 2017, as she began to incorporate larger, more complex painted environments that blurred the line between drawing and installation. These works invite comparisons to artists like Bruce Nauman, Keith Haring or Roy Lichtenstein.

Ebecho Muslimova (b.1984, Dagestan, Russia) lives and works in New York.

Muslimova received her BFA at Cooper Union in New York, NY in 2010. Muslimova has presented solo exhibitions at Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo; Magenta Plains, New York; Drawing Center, New York; David Zwirner Gallery, London; Galerie Maria Bernheim, Zurich; White Flag Projects, St. Louis and Room East, New York.

Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel; ICA Miami, Miami; Renaissance Society, Chicago; Zuzeum, Riga; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C; Swiss Institute, New York; Kunsthalle St. Gallen, St. Gallen. Her large-scale murals have been commissioned for biennials such as The Dreamers, 58th Edition of October Salon, Belgrade, and 32nd Biennale of Graphic Arts: Birth as Criterion, Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2022, Muslimova was the recipient of the Borlem Prize, honoring artists whose oeuvres bring awareness to mental health issues and struggles.