Dripping in cobalt blue gauze and hugging the corners of her studio like budding honeycombs, Raafat’s untitled work is derived from muqarnas, a decorative Islamic architectural structure made up of geometric parts. Through an open-ended conversations with visitors, she will talk about architectural and ornamental forms, like the muqarnas, and how these nominally decorative practices portray complexity and depth within our interconnected world.
 
Armita Raafat is a New York-based sculptor and installation artist working with themes of architectural transfiguration and hybridity. She got her BFA from Al-Zahra University in Iran and MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Notably, she has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, HORSEANDPONY Fine Arts , Berlin, and Al-Zahra University, Tehran among others. She received the Peter S. Reed Foundation grant for sculpture and a NYFA fellowship for Sculpture/Crafts and has been in residence at the LMCC swing space and AIM at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Cecile Chong’s paintings and installations maintain a thematic thread of cultural assimilation and entanglement as illustrated in her most recent series of mask-like beads on strainers. Using found objects such as plastic to create collections of “contemporary cultural artifacts”, Chong calls into question how cultural objects and ideas are visually acquired, represented, and interpreted. More specifically, she questions how cultures copy others, and how borrowed ideas often find their way back to the original culture.
 
Cecile Chong (b. 1964) is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture and installation. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, the Lower East Side Printshop, MASS MoCA Studios, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, The Center for Book Arts, Socrates Sculpture Park, AIM – Bronx Museum, Urban Artist Initiative NYC, Aljira Emerge and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Solo exhibitions include FiveMyles Plus Space, Selena Gallery, BRIC House, Emerson Gallery Berlin, Honey Ramka Project Space, Figuresworks, Corridor Gallery and ArtSPACE and Praxis Project Space.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Fei utilizes materials found in nature, such as tendrils, leaves and thorns to symbolize the voiceless messages in nature that are waiting to be discovered and heard. Both the concept of nature in her Chinese heritage, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of all beings, and the Western theory of trans-culture, which stresses living beyond the limitations of any particular culture, are instrumental to the philosophy of her practice.
 
Cui Fei (b. in Jinan, China) received her BFA from the China Academy of Fine Arts and her MFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Cui’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Museum of Arts and Design, New York, Princeton University Art Museum, Queens Museum, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Rietberg Museum Zurich, and Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne among others. She has received grants and fellowships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Art, Socrates Sculpture Park and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Fei was also selected for the Artist-in-Residence at Art Omi, Light Work and Center for Book Arts.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Kim’s curiosity lies in the exploration of perception and memory – specifically how the information received through each is fragmented and elusive, yet made whole through our bodies. Using raw materials such as reference photos, sketches, color swatches, and written descriptions, he aims to reassemble and reconstitute his experiences through his multi-media landscapes on paper,. His most recent works illustrate the Northeastern United States and the Eastern Sierras of California – two distinctly different environments.
 
Justin Kim (born in Hartford, CT) received a B.A. from Yale and an M.F.A. from the American University in Washington, D.C. He has exhibited at Denise Bibro, Brenda Taylor, and Bowery Gallery in New York City among others. Recent grants and awards include Working Artist Grant, Best in Show Award by Andrew Russeth, Senior Editor at the New York Observer for the Art of the Northeast Competition. Justin Kim has taught at Yale, Dartmouth, Smith College, The University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Deep Springs College in CA.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Mahmoud Hamadani has been exhibiting his art since 1999, gaining recognition for minimalist work that is a beautiful fusion of natural occurrences, chance, environments, and visual narratives. There is a meditative and visual rhythm in his mostly black and white forms, that draws inspiration from the numerical Fibonacci sequence, ancient Persian poetry and traditional Chinese painting.
 
Mahmoud Hamadani (b. 1958 in Rasht, Iran) attended the State University of New York, gaining a BA in Mathematics, and then continued on to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His work has been shown at The British Museum, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and the Percy-Miller Gallery, London among others. Work by Hamandi is in the collection of the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Natalia Nakazawa’s current project, Our Stories of Migration, details human movement through art objects and storytelling. Participants are invited to embroider their own ancestral, present, and future paths onto the surface of a world map tapestry, which has been constructed with digital images mined from site-specific museum collections. Each image highlights a different object from a collection that embodies historical moments of cultural exchange. Additionally, visitors draw their own maps — which are continuously added to an animated archive —and respond to the prompt question: “What does it mean to be a global citizen?”
 
Natalia Nakazawa is a New York-based artist working across multiple disciplines, including painting, textiles, and social practice. She received her MFA in studio practice from California College of the Arts, a MSEd from Queens College, and a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been exhibited in NY at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Museum of Arts and Design, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Queens Museum of Art, and Blackburn 20|20 Gallery, as well as Casa de la Ciudad in Mexico and The Noyes Museum of Art in NJ.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Samira Abbassy, one of the founding members of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, presents her most recent project documenting the inception and progress of EFA’s Open Studios program. Pulling from her archive of 2000-2018 EFA brochures, Abbassy recalls the roster of artists and colleagues who have played a vital role in the evolution and success of the organization.
 
Samira Abbassy (born in Ahwaz, Iran) moved to New York in 1988. Abbassy’s works are included in public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, the British Government Art Collection, the Burger Collection, the Donald Rubin collection, the Farjam Collection in Dubai, the Devi Foundation in India, the Omid foundation in Iran, and the Grey Art Gallery Collection at NYU.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Using science fiction and fantasy to re-imagine the world in multiple dimensions, Woolfalk blends digital with the analogue and human with the machine in her recently commissioned video installations for the Nelson Atkins Museum and the Kohler Art Center. It is through this exploration that Woolfalk tests the various forms of contemporary consciousness that emerge as the two realms blend in our experiences of reality.
 
Saya Woolfalk (b. 1979 in Japan) is a New York-based artist whose multi-year projects No Place, The Empathics, and ChimaTEK, have given birth to a world of the Empathics, a fictional race of women who are able to alter their genetic make-up and fuse with plants. With each body of work, Woolfalk continues to build the narrative of these women’s lives and questions the utopian possibilities of cultural hybridity. She has exhibited at PS1/MoMA; Deitch Projects; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Brooklyn Museum; Asian Art Museum, CA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem among others.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Through a series of interactive slideshow presentations, Shahpour Pouyan introduces a series of works and projects that have never been seen or exhibited outside of his studio space. His practice ranges from drawings and paintings to sculptures and performance art, with a strong focus on military aggression and religion. Hybridizing what he considers the “residues” of empires and navigating different aspects of human history such as architecture, technology, and armaments, he commentates on power and its use throughout human advancement. The session will be followed by an open Q&A, where the artist will allow attendees to get a deeper understanding of his practice, methods and artistic approach.
 
Pouyan (b. 1979, Isfahan, Iran) received his MFA in Integrated Practices and New Forms at the Pratt Institute, New York, and an MFA in Painting from the Tehran University of Art. His recent exhibitions include group shows at Carthage Museum, Tunis; REDCAT, Los Angeles; LACMA; and the Armory Show, NY. His work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The British Museum.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

From Dawn to Midnight, is a series of neo-conceptual, minimalist drawings engaging sources of nature and phenomenology. Positing herself as the subaltern subject/object, Ray devises a map of her (dis)orientations, continually shifting the line of her gaze and manipulating the distance between her body and the objects of her desire to navigate the field of mnemonic disjunctures. Mapping orientation is a way to make sense of time and (in)visibility, evinced by the nuanced overlaying of cultural references in her work. In Rays work, personal memory becomes a weapon, a form of resistance against cultural erasures enforced by the passage of time and narratives in a state of flux.
 
Sharmistha Ray is a New York-based artist, writer, curator and TED Fellow whose work addresses personal identity as situated at the crossroads of migration. Drawing on postcolonial theory, queer politics and phenomenological aesthetics, Sharmistha Ray constructs an autobiography of lived experience, proposing multiple perspectives for the construction of identity. Her work has been presented through solo exhibitions at Aicon Gallery, New York, Galerie Steph, Singapore, and Nine Fish Art Gallery, Mumbai among others.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Using unconventional waste materials and objects from daily life, Tamika Kawata works in both large and small scale installations in an attempt to achieve a level of personal intimacy with her works. Kawata views these discarded materials as representative of her differing life experiences in the U.S. and Japan, and works to utilize them as a visual diary. Her practice heavily reflects her fascination with Dadaism, Bauhaus and Gutai philosophies.
 
Tamiko Kawata (born in Kobe, Japan) received her BFA in Sculpture at Tsukuba University and moved to New York in 1962. She has received awards and fellowships from MeetFactory in Chez, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York Foundation for Arts and the Fellowship, Empire State Alliance, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and Louise Bourgeois Residency Award in Yaddo, and Edward Albee Art Foundation. Her works are in the permanent collections of Montreal Museum for Contemporary Art, Racine Art Museum, LongHouse Reserve, Museum for Arts and Design, Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum, Hawaii Art Museum, and many other private collections in Japan.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Bilal’s work is constantly informed by the experience of fleeing his homeland and existing simultaneously in two worlds – his home in the “comfort zone” of the U.S. and his consciousness of the “conflict zone” in Iraq. Using his own body as a medium, Bilal continues to challenge our comfort zone with projects like 3rdi and …and Counting. For his 2007 installation, Domestic Tension, Bilal spent a month in a Chicago gallery with a paintball gun that people could shoot at him over the Internet. The Chicago Tribune called it “one of the sharpest works of political art to be seen in a long time” and named him 2008 Artist of the Year.
 
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal, an Associate Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, is known internationally for his online performative and interactive works provoking dialogue about international politics and internal dynamics. Bilal’s most recent body of work, Canto III, premiered at the New York Armory Show, 2015 and in the 2015 Venice Biennale. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar amongst others. He holds a BFA from the University of New Mexico and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Xin Song is most well-known for her contemporary twist to the traditional Chinese folk paper technique Jianzhi. Song creates works using her large collection of magazines, which she believes are mirrors reflecting global current affairs. Dealing with subjects such as war, politics, technology, health, poverty, and sex, Song poses larger questions about our current social & political values using a range of motifs from venerable flowers, landscape studies and urban scenes from her long-time residency in New York
 
Born in Beijing, Xin Song incorporates traditional Chinese forms and juxtaposes them amongst an array of themes. Five Elements for the Fashion District’s Broadway Boulevard Plaza and an installation for Grand Central’s 100 Anniversary Celebration are among her public commissions. Song’s works have been exhibited at Venice Biennial, Musée du Louvre, Paris, National Art Museum of China, and Paper Art Biennial, Bulgaria.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street
 

Kim works predominantly on representational painting that describes a psychological landscape of isolation and alienation in the urban environment. Applying his strokes in a dotted, pixelated manner, Kim removes all trace of the artist’s painterly stroke to mimic a photo-realistic image. This removal of the human-quality of a painter’s hand further cements the loneliness, solitude, and desolation found in his work.
 
Born in 1985 in South Korea, Yongjae Kim received his B.F.A. at Seoul National University and an M.F.A. at Pratt Institute. His works have been exhibited at Volta New York, Sotheby’s Institute, Attleboro Arts Museum, Muriel Guepin Gallery New York and St. Joseph College among others. Kim received Best Color Work Award at 2014 KSCS International Invitation Exhibition of Color Works in Korea.
 
As part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts 2018 Open Studios
Address: 323 West 39th Street