Everywhere and Nowhere
Alien Artist Collective
Everywhere and Nowhere features the works of 12 immigrant artists that met through the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. This group show explores themes of home, identity, and belonging through various media such as painting, sculpture, installation, mixed media, and performance art. There are 9 different countries represented including Uzbekistan, Japan, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Turkey, France, Ireland, Lebanon, and Israel. Influenced by their specific backgrounds, this community of international immigrant artists came together with the desire to create a collective exhibition that celebrates diversity and interconnectedness.
About the Artists
Ami Park, born and raised in Seoul, Korea, is a visual artist based in NYC. She works with textiles influencing irregular and infinitely variable natural forms driven by deep scientific and spiritual curiosity. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at Ethan Cohen Kube, ChaShaMa, New York Live Arts, Project V Gallery, and The Royal Society Of American Art in NY; The Holy Art Gallery in London; Galerie Dièse in Paris; CICA Museum in Korea, among others. Her wearable art collection contributed to a multi-disciplinary project at MoMA and The Bronx Museum. She holds a BFA in Fashion Design from The Parsons School of Design. Ami was granted by The Puffin Foundation and was awarded the Immigrant Artists Program by NYFA. She completed a residency for Interdisciplinary Practices in Bio Art at The School of Visual Arts.
For more information on Ami visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Ji Yong Kim is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A. Born in South Korea, He received his B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design, and M.F.A. from Montclair State University in New Jersey. He has been an artist in residence at AIRY Yamanashi in Japan, Soaring Gardens in Pennsylvania, and Marpha Foundation in Nepal. He was a recipient of Civil Society Fellowship in Vermont Studio Center, and currently is an artist in residence in ChaShaMa Studio Space program in Brooklyn, New York. He is an instructor of Foundation and Painting programs at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey.
For more information on Ji Yong visit his website and follow him on Instagram.
Farangiz Yusupova is an artist whose work explores ideas of cultural dissonance, home, and memory through painting. Born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Farangiz immigrated to New York in 2014. She holds a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. In the summer of 2018, Farangiz was awarded a scholarship to attend a workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, Colorado. Her work was exhibited in numerous group shows such as at M. David & Co, Brooklyn, NY, Dodomu Gallery, Liminality Art Space in Long Island City, NY and New York Live Arts. Farangiz is a participant in NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentorship Program. In 2022, her work was published in Khôra Magazine, Issues 13-16.
For more information on Farangiz visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Jiwon Rhie is a Korean multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the ideas of boundaries, human relationships, and cultural identity through variegated art mediums. She holds a BFA from Hongik University, Hannam University, and an MFA at Pratt Institute. Rhie is a 2021 Bronx Museum AIM Fellow and was awarded AHL – T&W Foundation Contemporary Visual Art Award and Queens Art Fund Award by The Queens Council on the Arts. Her works have been exhibited throughout the US and she has participated in residency programs at 4Heads AIR (Governors Island, NY), NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), and the Vermont Studio Center (Burlington, VT).
For more information on Jiwon visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Akiko Yamamoto is an artist and designer based in Brooklyn, New York. Yamamoto received her B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts from Rutgers University. Yamamoto was born in Yamanashi, Japan and grew up during the economic bubble of the 80s. She left Japan to find more opportunities as a woman in a male-dominated world and to pursue her education. She began her career as a graphic designer, and painted to express her own vision of unconstrained artistic freedom. In her work, Yamamoto has developed a language of deconstructed shapes and vivid color executed in a variety of mediums including oil, acrylic, ink, color pencil, watercolor, and silver and gold leaf. The shapes, patterns and color are assembled in a visual vocabulary that posits memories, ancestors and spaces as iconographic forms. In her compositions they come to life to create mind maps of time and experience.
For more information on Akiko visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Robin Curtil is a French painter who graduated from Superior School Art Design of Saint-Etienne (ESADSE, France) in 2017. He lives and works in New York City, NY. In 2022, Robin Curtil was selected to join the Immigrant Artist Program (IAP) of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). He also participated in a group exhibition at Live Arts New York (NY) and at Launch F18 Gallery’s Viewing Room (NY). Robin was also a 2021 Artist in Residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon, France. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Saint-Etienne (France) during the 2020 Art Press biennale, organized by the Art Press magazine. On this occasion, Art Press magazine published an article about his painting practice. His work has been also exhibited at the French Institute of Sphax (Tunisia, 2016), the 4th Wuhan biennale (China, 2017) and at the Ceysson&Benetiere Gallery (Saint-Etienne, France, 2017)
For more information on Robin visit his website and follow him on Instagram.
Sayoko Kojima was born and raised in a small town in Japan. She studied Fashion and Arts and holds a B.A. degree. After moving to NYC she trained in contemporary dance and performed as a dancer in shows for various artists. In 2020 she created fashion art brand Sayoko Creations: Reincarnating unwanted materials by hand, giving them a new life with a twist of humor, and showed her collections in fashion shows, magazines and exhibitions. From 2021, she started creating movement work: internal connection to the body and mind, moving the body through flowing energy, and performed in various shows. She has now expanded her curiosity and interests in visual arts: What was Before-What is Now-What can be Next…. Past object to Current momentum to Extended existence, and has participated in group exhibitions and created installation works.
For more information on Sayoko visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Noga Cohen is New York-based artist and educator. She is the recipient of the Immigrant Artists Program Fellowship of NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts) for 2021-22. She received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University in 2021. While earning her MFA, she won the David Berg Foundation Fellowship, the Artis Contemporary Fellowship, and the Brevoort-Eickemeyer Fellowship. In 2018, she received the Gross Foundation Prize, the Adams Prize, and the SBY grant for emerging artists. Her work has been included in venues such as Amos Eno Gallery (Brooklyn), ChaShaMa (New York), Wallach Gallery (New York), Project V Gallery (New York), the Art Lab (Tel Aviv), and more. Her work was featured in publications such as ArtForum, Art and Education, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Magazine, and more.
For more information on Noga visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
Kariny Padilla is from Queens, New York, and received her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2021. As an emerging artist, Kariny’s current work is about documenting her relationship with her environment by reflecting on the people and spaces that have impacted her.
For more information on Kariny visit follow her on Instagram.
Ma’moon is an interdisciplinary Lebanese born Artist, based in New York City. Equally at home in the worlds of Theater/film, Performing and Visual Arts. His passion for storytelling takes shape in many mediums such as Directing, Designing, Painting and Writing. In 2014 he received his master in higher studies in architecture from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts – ALBA, while pursuing his passion for Acting. He performed in many productions in Lebanon and around the Middle East, Such as Alexandria Opera House in Egypt (2015) and The Royal Cultural Center in Amman Jordan (2016). In 2015 Ma’moon combined his work and passion and Started designing films and plays. In 2018, “Brine” a Film, in which he played a leading role and did the Production Design, won the 24th European Film Festival. Kalash, a film on which he was the Art director, was internationally acclaimed and was awarded in many festivals around the world such as the LA International Film Festival, and Hollywood MPIFF.
For more information on Ma’moon visit his website and follow him on Instagram.
Bahar Demirtas is a graphic designer and painter born in Northern Kurdistan. Based in Upstate New York since 2020. Her work explores the relationship between state violence, resistance, and feminism in the Middle East. She graduated from the Anadolu University Faculty of Fine Arts, minoring in painting, printing techniques, and sculpture. She worked at Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality as an art coordinator from 2009 to 2015. She organized various creative art projects in Diyarbakır with children from families forced to migrate during the civil war, female political prisoners, and female victims of domestic violence. She worked as a project coordinator in the International Kurdistan Art Project in 2015. After teaching art at TED College Foundation Schools in Diyarbakır from 2015 to 2019, she earned her master’s degree in 2019 after completing her thesis, titled “ The Feminist Art Movement and Palestinian Women Artists”. Lately, she worked as a museum assistant at Binghamton University Art Museum. Her recent artworks were used by various publishing houses as book covers in Turkey, Italy, France, and Greece.
For more information on Bahar visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
