Opening Reception for On the Wall: Sheida Soleimani

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sheida Soleimani was born in 1990 to political refugees who fled Iran in the mid-1980s. As an Iranian American, she builds photographic tableaus that dramatize Middle Eastern geopolitics and saterize the reporting of West and East alike. Her photographs often source imagery from popular media and adapt them to exist within alternative scenarios, including photographs, moving image, sculpture, and theatre. Like propaganda posters and art forms that emerge in times of crisis (Dada, relational aesthetics, identity politics),her works chronicle oral histories to portray events that have been shrouded by Western reportage, situating her practice and discourse not only in art, but also in political activism. Soleimani holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the University of Cincinnati, College of Art. Her most recent solo exhibitions were at Harlan Levey Projects in Brussels, Denny Dimin Gallery in New York, and the evolving exhibitionMedium of Exchange that examined how oil is interchangeable with currency and the corruption at the center of the petroleum industry. Medium of Exchange traveled to six different locations from Edel Assanti in London to the Atlanta Contemporary, in Atlanta,GA. Soleimani is represented by Edel Assanti in London, Harlan Levey Projects in Brussels, and Denny Dimin Gallery in New York. Soleimani has been written about inThe New YorkTimes, Artforum, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, among many others, including BEAUTIFUL/DECAY founded by artist Amir H. Fallah. She lives and makes work inProvidence and is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University