IN HER BOX with Stanislava

IN HER BOX with Stanislava

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IN HER BOX, a series of interviews with women who personify the spirit of SARAH & SEBASTIAN, in celebration of passion, career and style.
 
Art, informed by science. Stanislava Pinchuk, the artist known as Miso, creates evocative artwork by mapping out conflict zones around the world with tiny dots. Recently recognised by Forbes and making her debut on their prestigious 30 Under 30 list, her work is as affecting and as gentle spoken as she is, making her one of our brand's most fascinating friends. 
 
We spent an afternoon uncovering her favourite ROSA pieces, and unearthing her passions, her work and her favourite books.

 

Instagram @m_i_s_o_    |   Photographed by Chris Loutfy at Paramount Recreation Club, Sydney.

 

 

 

Do you recall your first piece of jewellery?

Gold in my ears, put in at age 2.

 

 

What is your favourite piece from our ROSA collection?

...the huge, gold Rosa earrings. Predictably. 

 

 

Do you collect anything?

Not so much - I travel permanently, and always with a small bag. But being an artist, you do end up accumulating a lot of works in one way or another into a collection, which I'm always happy come home to. Textiles and weavings I always let myself buy and post home. It's such a big inspiration for me, that it's not something I could regret having around.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you see a correlation between your personal style and your work?
Absolutely. I think there's a lot of freedom in my job, and I think that joy is completely there in the way I dress and run around, for sure!

The thing with being an artist, is that you're a bit of a floating class. I think we experience a pretty big strata of the high and low. So some days you get to wear very beautiful things.... and I do go for clothes that look like my work. Structured, monochromatic, minimalist. And particularly the fashion designers that have inspired my art practice at times, like Martin Margiela and Dion Lee. A lot of Ellery. And on other days, it'll just be a practical vintage boiler suit for sculpture workshops and running around, often with gym clothes underneath. But most often, I just have to take my sneakers off and jam on Valentino shoes and red lipstick on with the mechanics suit and roll into the next thing without a stop over! That's why I always keep a tube of lipstick in one of the pockets, and a mix match of gold earrings in my wallet.


What are you currently reading?
I've been reading Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. They span this really incredible stretch of his life, where he loses his religion and reconciles what it is to be an artist.

I've also been coming back to Hilton Als' 'White Girls' a lot - particularly for a story called 'The Women'... which is the most beautiful, experimental ode to Truman Capote. I'm also dipping in and out of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short stories ; which are these great Surrealist works, but kind of filtered through really traditional Hebrew storytelling.

In February, my friends read me this incredible poem by Rumi called 'Like This'. We were sitting on the casbah wall in Tangier at 4am, with the sun was coming up and the call to prayer starting. All the roosters wake up and crow along with it. And since then, I've carried a book of his works with me everywhere. And I've copied that poem into every single sketchbook of mine... you can see it in the photos here, actually!



I've read that you only accept an exchange as payment for your tattoos. What is your all-time favourite swap?
Yes, I've never really felt right to tattoo people I didn't know, or to take money too it. So for ten years now, it's just trades with friends. I could never choose a favourite, because they're all from the heart. But recently, I was given a pearl that belonged to Vali Myers, who is just one of my favourite artists of all time. It was on one of her necklaces, and it's quickly become the most treasured thing that I own.

  

Do you tend to gravitate towards creatives within your friendship circle?
Without meaning to! I suppose I'm lucky in that my job lets me meet really great creative people everywhere, all the time... that I pretty much unanimously get along with.



What are your three favourite Instagram accounts?

@brutgroup ; for the most beautiful, brutalist architecture.
@sahelsounds ; my favourite record label for Saharan diaspora music.
@theheavycollective ; just the best taste and features on photography.

 

 

 

 

 

You live between a few dream cities and travel a lot. What is the next destination on your must-see list?
I do ! I'm not very good at being in one place, to be honest. Cairo and Sarajevo are next, I hope.


How do concepts for your work tend to come to you? Is there a lot of thought behind it, or do you find you gravitate towards new subject matter organically? 
There is so much thought and heavy research behind all my projects. Working in war and conflict zones, and with data, isn't something you can take lightly. Each project takes a long time, and eventuates only when it's ready – never for a due date. So I suppose saying that, it's a mix of the organic and controlled process in equal parts... but with a wild amount of consideration.

 

 

There's a very definite juxtaposition between the aesthetic delicacy of your work and the concepts behind it. How did you come to that?

For me, it's really interesting to think about how to show war or conflict zone - without using any of the visual language that you're used to seeing in the news. How do you show war without showing a photojournalistic or figurative image, for example? So for my practice, I love the tension of making something very beautiful, that only reveals itself as the data of something quite challenging and confronting when you read the title of the work. That double bluff is a very deliberate thing, and a way to invite someone to see and feel something very different to what they first expected.

 

 

 

 

 

If you weren't creating art, what would you be doing?
I would love to be an architect, or to bee-keep full time.


Describe your ideal Sunday in three words.
Studio, love, records..... ok, and wine. And sleep. And a book store.


What personal quality would you most like to be remembered for?
I don't think it's really about being remembered, or about what quality it is... but I'd really hope that the best parts of me would stay alive inside the people I loved most, is all.


"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge." In your field, what does this mean to you, if anything? I think about this a lot. When you see the urge to destroy in the form of war, in senseless violence, in fear mongering... there's no creativity there. To destroy people's artwork, to destroy books... there's nothing good coming from that.

But as an artist yourself, I think the urge to destroy your own work can be such a powerful thing. I think it's really good for artists to destroy and bin their own work from time to time. You can't be too afraid to set things on fire and start again. You have to think and process a lot, before the right thing reveals itself amongst it all, sometimes.