| BIO & REVIEWS | |||
Samira Abbassy is an Arab-Iranian born in the city of Ahwaz in southwestern Iran. In 1967, her family moved to Britain where she was educated and studied painting, first at Birmingham Polytechnic and then at Canterbury College of Art.
Abbassy's career was centered in London for most of the 1980s and 1990s, showing with the Mercury Gallery on Cork Street and the Royal Academy, where she won a painting award in 1997. In 1998 she moved to New York City where she helped to set up the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Center, and is currently an EFA studio member.
Solo and group shows in New York have included the Skoto Gallery, Vernacular Press, Kim Foster, Kathleen Cullen and Leila Heller galleries, the Islip Museum, the Queens Museum, Dowling College. Her work is also shown in Europe with England & Co. Gallery (London) and Ernst Hilger Gallery (Vienna).
Recent awards include a Yaddo fellowship (2006) and a NYFA fellowship in Drawing (2007). Her solo exhibitions have received reviews by Benjamin Genocchio in “The New York Times” and Ariella Budek in “Newsday”.
Abbassy's work has been acquired by the British Government Art Collection, the Donald Rubin Foundation (Rubin Museum, NY), and the British Museum for their contemporary Islamic collection.
In the last twelve months, Abbassy's work was included in the following curated group exhibitions: the Incheon Women's Biennale in Korea, the Beijing Biennale, "The Promise of Loss" (curated by Shaheen Merali) at Ernst Hilger Gallery, Vienna which traveled to the Arario Gallery, NY, the Chelsea Art Museum's exhibition “Iran Inside Out”, and the LTMH Gallery's exhibition "Tehran/New York".
Future curatorial group and solo projects including Abbassy's work are planned for 2010/11 in Berlin, Vienna, Lisbon, Dubai, Cochin and Tehran.
May, 2010