In Jewelstan, Aziza Shadenova turns to painting to explore both her childhood and present moment within the pandemic. The iconography in these works directly connects to Shadenova’s lived experiences, featuring clothing from her childhood, Art Deco objects from the artist’s own collection, and the quotidian objects we all lived amongst throughout the pandemic. However, by creating playful and ambiguous scenes, the paintings of Jewelstan create surreal landscapes of memory, the conscious and the unconscious. This seamless blending of the ordinary and extraordinary has become a central idea in Shadenova’s work which continues in her new series and projects.