Samira Abbassy
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Samira Abbassy (born 1965) is an Iranian-born British painter and draftsperson, of Arab heritage. Her work addresses issues of mythology, female deities, psyche, memory, and the diaspora. Abbassy lives in New York City, and previously lived in London.


Early life and education

Samira Abbasy was born in 1965 to an Arab family, in the city of
Ahvaz Ahvaz (; ) is a city in the Central District of Ahvaz County, Khuzestan province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is home to Persians, Arabs and other groups such as Qashqai and Kurds. Languages spok ...
in Khuzestan Province, Imperial State of Persia (now Iran). Her family moved to London when she was two years old, and she was raised in
Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
.  She studied drawing at Birmingham Polytechnic (now
Birmingham City University Birmingham City University (abbrev. BCU) is a university in Birmingham, England. Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843, it was designated as a polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic in 1971 an ...
) and then Canterbury College of Art (now
Kent Institute of Art & Design The Kent Institute of Art & Design (KIAD, often ) was an art school based across three campuses in the county of Kent, in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone Co ...
), where she obtained a BFA degree in painting in 1987.


Career

Abbasy began making art in the 1980s. After graduating, she exhibited her work in London for ten years, and then moved to New York City in 1998. Abbasy's work is a marriage between Western art and Eastern art traditions, including referencing
Christian iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
, as well as
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and Indian miniature painting,
Chinese painting Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as , meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western styles of art which b ...
, and Qajar court painting. She was awarded a fellowship by
New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...
(NYFA) in 2007. She was affiliated with the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective. The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA) awarded her a lifetime membership, in recognition of her work in developing the EFA Studio Program. Abbasy's artworks are in public museum collections, including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
, and the Grey Art Museum collection at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
.


See also

*
List of Iranian women artists A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbassy, Samira 1965 births Living people 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists 20th-century Iranian women artists 21st-century Iranian women artists Artists from London Artists from New York City Artists from Kent Alumni of the Birmingham School of Art Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts Iranian emigrants to England Iranian emigrants to the United States Iranian people of Arab descent People from Ahvaz