Samira, Abbassy
Samira Abbassy was born in Ahwaz, Iran in 1965 and is an Arabic Iranian. In 1967, her family moved to Britain where she was educated & studied painting, first at Birmingham Polytechnic and then at Canterbury College of Art.
Abbassy's career was centred on London for most of the 1980s and 1990s. She established a successful gallery career, showing with Mercury Gallery in Cork Street, the Royal Academy, where she won a painting award in 1997. Her work was acquired by the British Government Art Collection in 2002. She shows in the UK with England & co gallery.
In 1998 she moved to New York where she helped to set up the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Center where she currently has a studio.
In 2006 she was awarded a Yaddo fellowship and then in 2007 a NYFA. Solo and group shows in New York include the Skoto gallery, Vernacular press, Kim Foster and Kathleen Cullen galleries, the Islip Museum, the Queens Museum, Dowling College, the Leila Heller gallery and the Chelsea Art Museum, where her work is currently included in “Iran Inside Out”.
Her solo shows in 2007 were reviewed by Benjamin Genocchio in the New York Times and by Ariella Budek in Newsday.
In 2008 her work was acquired by the Rubin Museum, NY, and the British Museum acquired a drawing by Abbassy for their contemporary Islamic collection.
Abbassy’s paintings are being shown in August 2009 at the Incheon Women’s Biennale in Korea and consecutively at the Beijing Biennale.
In 2010 her work is to be included in curatorial projects in Vienna, Vancouver and Tehran.
