DENNY GALLERY NEW YORK PRESENTS SHEIDA SOLEIMANI BIRDS OF PASSAGE

Sheida Soleimani Birds of Passage NEW YORK September 5 to October 7, 2023 Opening Reception: Friday, September 8th, 6-8 pm

Denny Gallery is pleased to present Sheida Soleimani’s Birds of Passage. In the newest installation of her series Ghostwriter, Soleimani “ghostwrites” her parents’ lives: as pro-democratic dissidents targeted by the totalitarian regime in Iran after ’79; and as stateless refugees forced to seek asylum across Europe and in pre- and post-9/11 America. In these photographic assemblages, Soleimani creates palimpsests of memories as a way to reckon with the narratives that she herself has constructed throughout her life from her parents’ stories, drawings, notes, and artifacts of the seismic events that continue to shape their lives.

Portrait of Sheida Soleimani by Mel Taing for Boston Art Review, 2022. Sheida Soleimani was born in 1990 in Indianapolis, IN and lives in Providence, RI. She received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the University of Cincinnati. Her current and recent exhibitions include The Banner Project: Sheida Soleimani at MFA Boston, Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Ghostwriter at Edel Assanti Gallery (London, UK) and Providence College Galleries (Providence, RI), Eyes on Iran, a Four Freedoms and Vital Voices project at the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island (New York, NY), A Trillion Sunsets at the International Center of Photography (New York, NY), Negotiators at Kunsthaus Photoforum Pasquart (Biel, Switzerland), Levers of Power at Silver Eye Centre for Photography (Pittsburgh, PA), and Medium of Exchange at Southern Utah Museum of Art (Cedar City, UT) and CUE Art Foundation (New York, NY). Soleimani is included in prestigious permanent collections including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Providence College Galleries (Providence, RI), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Art Center (Cambridge, MA). Her work has been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Vogue, Artnet News, Boston Art Review, Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, ArtNews, The British Journal of Photography, Whitewall, and Art Asia Pacific. Sheida Soleimani is represented by Denny Gallery (New York), Edel Assanti (London, UK) and Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels, Belgium).  Sheida Soleimani, Safar, 2022. Archival pigment print and silkscreen. 24 x 18 in/61 x 46 cm.  Top Image: Sheida Soleimani, Dissident, 2023. Archival pigment print. 60 x 44 in/152 x 112 cm.    NEW YORK 39 Lispenard Street New York, NY 10013 email@dennygallery.com   HONG KONG No. 612 Remex Center No. 42 Wong Chuk Hang Road hk@dennygallery.com