Alma Sinai

Statement

I am an interdisciplinary artist using printmaking, drawing, video and installation as my primary mediums. The ideas in my works stem from an interpersonal realm, but they speak out to different individuals and communities that undergo abrupt and suspended situations in various scenarios. While navigating among different narratives, my works negotiate the uncertain status and the constant state of hovering and flux taking place in their subject’s proximate and distant surroundings. My projects usually focus on binaries: absence & presence, indoor & outdoor, visible & invisible.

The videos function as drawings with a time dimension; instead of having sharp beginnings and ends they consist of looped episodes with no exit points, that imply the gist of a narrative in an abstract manner rather than suggesting a linear story.

It is as if a single drawing/print comes to life/motion. On the other hand the prints capture a moment of pause and stillness, a transition between two phases that is emptied from the aspect of time.

GlogauAIR Project

The three sections in my most recent project “Refrain” are in dialogue through repetition, loops, patterns and ultimately the notion of trap.Through the process of recurrence in the motif of the nets and the looped narratives with no exit points, meanings get lost, added and distorted. The nets and their encompassing void together and solely implicate a space in which the figures are confined and trapped in. Within different parts of this project there lays an ongoing tension and an occasional leakage between inside & outside while implicating a sense of suspension and pause. These in-between zones are connected by a thread, the mountain.

In the same vein but with a new direction, I will continue working on the subject of repetition and tensions between binaries. This will be a multi-media project. In the course of the residency the ideas and techniques will unfold and take new paths based on the experience of being in the program’s environment and the city of Berlin.

In my practice drawing, prints, videos and installations complement the idea rather than being dictated by it. An open space between the developing works and ideas allows for a back and forth conversation that creates the core of my discourse.

CV Summary

Education

• 2013 – 2015 Parsons the New School for Design, M.F.A.
• 2010 – 2013 Rhode Island School of Design(RISD), B.F.A.
• 2007 – 2009 Art University of Tehran- Candidate for B.A. in Cinema, Tehran, Iran

Solo and Duo Exhibitions

• 2021 Refrain, 009821 Projects, Tehran, Iran
• 2018 – 2019 Marie & Liv, Slaturhusid Culture Center, Egilsstadir, Iceland (commission)
• 2018 Lung A Buoys, A collaborative work with Setare Arashloo, LungA School, The Net Factory, Seydisfjordur, Iceland
• 2016 – 2017 Where my past expires in a deed, Dastan Gallery, Tehran, Iran

Residencies, Fellowships & Awards

• 2019 School Art Fellowship – Artist in Residence, Vermont Studio Center , Vermont, USA
• 2018 Lung A Residency Fellowship, Seydisfjordur, Iceland
• 2013 The Iranian-American Scholarship Fund (IASF)
• 2012 RISD EHP (European Honors Program)

Selected Group Exhibitions

• 2021 Plus/Minus2020, Artilade Virtual exhibition
• 2020 Videos on Loop, Wolf Kahn Studio building (Gallery II), Vermont Studio Center, Vermont, USA
• 2020 Homebody: New Prints 2020/Winter, International Print Center New York (IPCNY), NY
• 2020 Circumvolution, organized by Paadmaan projects, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
• 2019 RE:RE:RE: patterns, La Bodega Gallery, NY
• 2019 Red, Site:Brooklyn, NY
• 2017 Multiplicity Vol.1, Bread & Salt and Dastan:Outside project, Dastan Gallery (V Cafe), Tehran, Iran
• 2017 Postcardese, Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran

Gallery