Alma Sinai
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 surrounding. 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 are consisted 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.
In my practice drawing and prints complements the idea rather than being dictated by it. An open space between the drawings and the ideas allows for a back and forth conversation that creates the core of my discourse. The three sections in my most recent project 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.
Born in Tehran, Iran
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
EDUCATION
2015 MFA Fine Art, Parsons the New School for Design, New York
2013 BFA, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Rhode Island
200-2009 Candidate for BA in Cinema, Art University of Tehran, Tehran
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 Refrain, 009821 Projects, Tehran, Iran
2016-2017 Where my past expires in a deed, Dastan Gallery, Tehran, Iran
VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
2021 GlogauAIR Artist Showcase, Berlin, Germany
2018-2019 Marie & Liv, Slaturhusid Culture Centre, Egilsstadir, Iceland (commission)
DUO EXHIBITIONS
2018 LungA Buoys, A collaborative with Setare Arashloo, LungA School, The Net Factory
Seyisfjordur, Iceland
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Unearthed Online: A virtual zoonotic hex exhibition, Field Projects, NY
2021 GlogauAIR open studios, Berlin
Plus/Minus2020, Artilade Virtual exhibition
2020 Videos on Loop, Wolf Kahn Studio Building (Gallery II), Vermont Studio Centre, Vermont, USA
Homebody: New Prints 2020/Winter, International Print Centre New York, NY
Circumvolution, Organized by Paadman Projects and [SHIFT:ibcpa], University of
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
2019 RE:RE:RE: patterns, La Bodega Gallery, NY
Red, Site:Brooklyn, NY
2017 Multiplicity Vol.1, Bread & Salt and Dastan: Outside, Dastan Gallery, Tehran, Iran
Postcardese, Azad Art gallery, Tehran, Iran
2016 Imago Mundi: The Art of Humanity, The Pratt Institute, NY, USA
Drawing Lines Across Mediums, Site:Brooklyn, NY, USA
2015 Pausing just to keep up, Sawtooth ARI, Tasmania, Australia
Off Pink, Parsons Fine Arts 2015 MFA Thesis Exhibition, The Kitchen, NY, USA
Video Snack 4, Regina Rex, NY, USA
MOP Cap (Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize) Shortlist Exhibition, Jumeirah Beach
Road Villa (Private Residence), Dubai, NY, USA
2014 Lumpy Discourses, 25 East Gallery, NY, USA
FE:BODY, 25 East Gallery, NY, USA
2013 Small Photos Exhibition, Arya Gallery, NY, USA
This Placement: Race, Identity, Culture Shock, The Roots Cultural Centre, Providence,
RI, USA
White Tie Show, Expose, Providence, RI, USA
2012 RISD Mostra Finlae, Palazetto Ceni, Rome, Italy
WI-FI Art Exhibit, Circolo Degli Artisti, Rome, Italy
Elephant in the Dark, Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi, India
2010 The World to Where I Adhere, Silk Road Gallery, Tehran, Iran
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2021 GlogauAIR Artist in Residence, Berlin, Germany
2019 School Art Fellowship – Artist in Residence, Vermont Studio Centre, Vermont, USA
2018 LungA Residency Fellowship, Seydisfjordur, Iceland
2013 The Iranian-American Scholarship Fund (IASF)
2012 RISD EHP (European Honours Program)
PUBLICATIONS
2014 Luciano Benetton Collection, Iran: iranomutomorphosis.net; Contemporary Artists from
Iran, Imagomundi, (Italy: Fabrica 2014), p.283
2012 The Round Magazine, Brown University, Issue VI, Fall 2012, p.69
