Željka Aleksić (*1989, Knjaževac, Serbia) is a Vienna-based visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, performance, and performative sculpture. Her work critically addresses the harsh economic realities and precarity faced by contemporary artists.

Aleksić exposes the often invisible labor, bureaucratic obstacles, and emotional toll inherent in the struggle for survival within a precarious migrant existence. Through documentary photography and acrylic paintings, she unflinchingly reveals the tangible costs of pursuing art—not as an abstract ideal but as a material struggle grounded in physical labor and systemic exploitation.

Challenging the notion of art education as a privilege, Aleksić asserts that body and labor are integral and inseparable from the creative process. Her work transforms survival into performance and performance into a vital means of endurance.

She was awarded the Academy Prize for her diploma project at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2023 and received the Recognition Award from Kunsthalle Wien the same year. Additionally, she was selected for the Academy Studio Program at Vienna’s Creative Cluster. In 2025 she was honored with the Erste Bank and DWH Art Prize and awarded the MA 7 Arbeitsstipendium scholarship for 2026.