Multiversant
NYFA 2018 Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program
Multiversant is an exhibition featuring the works of 22 artists from 15 countries and 4 continents that met through the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) 2018 Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program: Visual & Multidisciplinary Arts (funded by Deutsche Bank since 2007). The works presented include a wide range of media—painting, installation, performance, video and others—and navigate the artists’ diverse and complex relationships with place and history. Addressing themes varying from science, culture, desire, politics, and memory, the exhibition both confronts and celebrates the underlying intersectionalities presented through the artists’ work.
About the Artists
Ololade Adeniyi is a Nigerian-Australian Video and Sound Artist. Her work draws heavily from themes of appropriation, hybridization and sampling—the hallmarks of Black art forms. At its core, her work investigates changing architectural landscapes and the relationship between the utopia of the New Industry and the reality of workers in migration.
For more information about Ololade, visit http://ololadeadeniyi.com/ or follow her on Instagram.
Yael Ben Simon is an Israeli painter. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute Chicago in 2015. Her works aim to explore the relationship between propaganda, identity, magic and image making through painting.
For more information about Yael, visit http://yaelbensimon.com/ or follow her on Instagram.
Julia Brandão is Brazilian artist, based in New York. She studied International Relations in São Paulo, Brazil. Her work has been shown across New York, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. She was an artist-in-residence at Annex B, New York in 2017. Working mostly with fabric and performance, the artist questions identity in relation to displacement, memory and migration.
For more information about Julia, visit https://www.juliabrandao.com/
Riaki Enyama is a NY-based Japanese artist who works in performance, painting and printmaking. She has kept a detailed daily dream diary since 2004 and has been studied dream analysis since 2006. All her works are based on her dreams and her dream interpretative practices.
For more information about Riaki, visit https://www.riakienyama.com/
Ana Maria Farina is a Brazilian artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her Master of Arts degree in Art and Art Education from Columbia University in 2016 and is now a MFA candidate in Painting and Drawing at SUNY New Paltz. Ana’s work investigates the intersections between art, spirituality, and womanhood.
For more information about Ana, visit https://www.anamafarina.com/ or follow her on Instagram.
Floor Grootenhuis is a Dutch-Kenyan contemporary artist based in NY. Her contemporary practice is focused on invitation, connection and identity. She has an MFA in social practice from Queens College, CUNY and was a More Art Engaging Artist 2017 fellow.
Follow Floor on Instagram.
Sarah Zarina Hakani is an Indian, Muslim artist and technologist who received her B.S. in Neuroscience and M.Ed in Technology and Innovation. Although she is not trained in fine arts, her formal education directly inspires her creative practice interrogating cognition, futuristic faith, womanhood, and post-colonial activism.
For more information about Sarah, visit https://www.sarahhakani.com/ or follow her on Instagram.
Ziyu He graduated from NYU Tisch School of Arts, Interactive Telecommunications Program. Her work is multidisciplinary, ranging from kinetic sculptures to custom softwares. She is attracted to subjects that are unquantifiable, indefinable, by things that are invisible, subtle or beyond great boundaries, which then she is able to connect to larger archetypes.
For more information about Ziyu, visit https://ziyuhe.co/.
Sizhu Li is a Chinese multimedia artist based on New York. She received her MFA in Maryland Institute College of Art in 2018 and BFA in China Central academy of Art in 2016.
For more information about Sizhu, visit https://www.sizhuli.com/
Supermrin is an Indian artist working at the intersections of architecture, art and design. Through re-conceptions of site and experience, she creates installations and environments that seek to shift perceptions, beliefs and assumptions about the nature of the physical world.
For more information about Supermrin, visit http://streetlight.space/ or follow her on Instagram
Orr Menirom’s work focuses on digital moving images and they way in which they reflect upon, and interject with the daily reality of our social and political life. She received her MFA from the Film & Video department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Born in Tel Aviv, based in NYC.
For more information about Orr, visit https://orrmenirom.com/
Nazanin Noroozi works predominantly in the medium of printmaking, but she also incorporates painting and alternative photography processes, exploring new ways to represent the idea of collective memory and diaspora. Nazanin’s work has been widely exhibited in both Iran and the United States, including the Museum of Russian Art, Noyes Museum of Art, Prizm Art Fair, and Columbia University. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from NYFA IAP Program 2018, Saltonstall Fellowship 2019 ( Ithaca,NY) MASS MoCA Studio Residency 2019 ( North Adams, MA) and “New Generation” award in Iran, among others. She is the editor at large of Kaarnamaa, a Journal of Art History and Criticism, collaborating with artists creating artist books and projects. Nazanin received her MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute in 2015. She currently lives and works in New York City.
For more information about Nazanin, visit https://www.nazaninnoroozi.net/
Robert Edward O’Shea (b. Wexford, Ireland) graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, in 2016. Since then, his work has been involved in several projects: in 2017 he completed an extensive archive study at artist-led gallery Catalyst Arts in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Other recent projects include: Labour & Part of Glowing Letters (2018), New York, and the quality of the materials (2018). He currently lives and works between New York and Ireland.
Masahito Ono (b. 1983, Tokyo, Japan) creates installations, photographs and films that investigate and represent the process of transformation of nature and human life. His projects examine structures of time, memory, and the production of experience and knowledge by engaging with archival materials, individual and collective narratives, and history that span cultural and national borders. Ono received his Master of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in 2015. Prior to moving to New York, he was an international video journalist working for global media organizations. Ono has received awards including: NYFA IAP (2018); Triangle Arts Association Artists-in-Residence, NY (2017); 2nd place winner – Fine Art: Abstract, International Photographer of the Year (2015); 1st place and Gold Star Award in Fine Art: Abstract Category, Neutral Density Photography Awards (2015). Ono has participated in a number of exhibitions worldwide including: 38th EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ireland (2018); Push Pull – Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, New York (2015); Auckland Festival of Photography, Auckland, NZ (2014, 2015); So Many Things Don’t Know – MUSEE F for The Month of Photography Tokyo 2014, Japan (2014); Ping Yao International Photo Festival, China (2013); among others. Ono currently lives and works in New York.
For more information about Masahito, visit https://www.masahitoono.com/ or follow him on Instagram.
Ernesto Ortiz Leyva was born in El Paso, TX. He received a BFA from the California College of the Arts in 2005 and an MFA in Drawing and Painting from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. His drawings, paintings, and etchings explore themes of sexual vulnerability, social conflict and political aggression, expressed in a unique variety of satiric, surreal and grotesque modes, drawn from a wide range of pictorial influences.
For more information about Ernesto, visit https://www.ernestoortizleyva.com/ or follow him on Instagram.
Htet T San is a New York-based artist working with visual art, photography and installation. She studied photography and art studio at University of Alabama-Huntsville, School of Visual Arts, New York and Falmouth University, UK. Her work explores ideas of identity, existence, memories, nostalgia, societal problems and human experience in a meditative and contemplative manner. Recently, she has been combining the visual concepts of installation, video projections, and sculptural/material mediums with traditional darkroom and digital imaging techniques.
For more information about Htet, visit http://www.htettsan.com/
Lyto Triantafyllidou is a Greek theatre director based in New York who is interested in developing theatre that creates a new and original dialogue with reality. Her works include researching and revitalizing under-represented extant works from the global stage, adapting classical material and developing devised theater pieces. Lyto holds an MFA in Theater directing from the New School for Drama. She has presented work in different festivals and platforms in United States, UK, Israel and Greece.
For more information about Lyto, visit https://www.lytotr.com/about
Beverly Tu is Taiwanese-born and New York-based fashion designer and mixed media artist who focuses on fabric manipulation, textiles, beading, and textures.
For more information about Beverly, visit https://bifoli2.com/
Hanae Utamura is a Japanese-born performance artist. She contemplates the relationship between human and nature; focusing on how we imagine, negotiate and affect nature through our scientific development. She works in video, live performance, installation and sculpture.
For more information about Hanae, visit https://www.hanaeutamura.com/.
Luisa Valderrama was born in Colombia and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Pratt (2018), a BFA in Painting and Drawing and a BA in Art History from Los Andes University, Colombia (2013/2014).
For more information about Luisa, visit http://www.luisa-valderrama.com/ or follow her on Instagram.
Chen Wang is a digital media artist, works with a variety of elements including video and installation, hand-made costumes, drawings, animation and performance. Chen received her MFA in Photography from RIT in 2018 and BFA in Painting from VCU in 2014.
For more information about Chen, visit https://www.chenwangstudio.com/
Tina Wang is a Taiwanese-born, Latin American-bred and New York-based artist. Her work addresses the challenges of integrating multiple identities, the healing power of humor, and the resilience of the human experience by relating body movements and objects.
For more information about Tina, visit https://www.tinawang.net/
