Eliyah Mesayer ^(DK)

Eliyah Mesayer (b.1987) graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in 2020. She is based in Copenhagen.

While working within several expressions, Eliyah Mesayer’s practice is primarily expressed through an alchemical tradition, especially that found in the treatises of Jabir ibn Hayyan (721-815), (Geber) – The Father of Chemistry. Inspired by Gebers multitude of processes for investigating and exposing the principles of it’s subjects, one outlet is Mesayer’s alchemical works on paper, where she create visual interferences by combining chemical processes with light. However, her form of alchemy isn’t limited to these formats, but also extends itself into poetry, installation, and performative works. Like Geber, Eliyah Mesayer is in search of chemical reactions between different poles. She is merely interested in the transformation when the two meet rather than the translation of the singular.

A focal point for all of these is the fictional state Illiyeen, a state for the stateless, which both engages her own heritage, but also seeks a form of alchemical change by artistically balancing itself on the dynamic threshold between reality and fiction as well as fact and imagination. Illiyeen is a non-specific geographical location. It is a state of nowhere and a nation of everywhere. It is a state of being. Illiyeen is a conceptual manifestation emanating from poems, installations, songs, compositions, performances, and exhibitions, it is about history, past and present. A liminal state between the political and the poetics.