Siona Benjamin

Siona Benjamin (born 11 December 1960) is an Indian-American artist originally from Mumbai, India and now residing in the New York City area.[1]

Background

Siona Benjamin (Kasukar) is originally from Bombay, now living in the New York City area.[2] Her signature work as a multicultural artist reflects her background of being brought up Jewish in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim in India.[2] In her paintings, she combines the imagery of her past with the role she plays in America today, making a mosaic of underlying meaning inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Sephardic icons. She has her first MFA in painting and a second MFA in Theater set design.[3][4] She has exhibited in the US, Canada, Europe, India, and Asia.[5]

Siona has been awarded two Fulbright Fellowships:[3] in Fall 2016, Siona embarked on a new project to take place in Israel titled Motherland to Fatherland: Indian Transcultural Jews;[6] in 2010-11, Siona was awarded an art project titled Faces: Weaving Indian Jewish Narratives.[4] Research for this project was conducted in India,[7] and the first exhibition took place in October 2013 at the Prince of Wales museum in Mumbai, India.

Her work has been featured in a variety of media including: The New York Times,[8][9] The Chicago Tribune,[10] The Philadelphia Inquirer,[11] The Financial Times,[12] The Jewish Week in NYC[13] and NJ, The Boston Globe,[14] The St. Louis Gazette, Art in America, Art New England,[15] Art and Antiques,[16] ArtNews,[4] and Moment magazine.

Siona's original paintings are available and represented by ACA Galleries in New York City.

Themes

Growing up in India, assimilation was expected in much of her daily life, and so "identity" and "mutual understanding" became major themes in Benjamin’s art.[2] Her culturally diverse background informs her approach to art. Her work is influenced by biblical subject matter, reflections on gender and an interest in Midrashic process. Much of her imagery reflects Indian mythology in an effort to reveal what shapes both physical and spiritual identity. In her series "Finding Home", begun in the late 1990s, and in other work, Benjamin colors figures blue.[17][18] Ori Soltes, professor and curator, comments, "She applies a skin color most frequently associated with a male--the Hindu god, Krishna--to female figures, forcing the viewer to stop and rethink whatever she thought she knew about that association."[19] Also at the core of her work is an ecumenical and empathetic spirit that comes from the very core of Jewish experience. Stylistically amalgamating Indian/Persian miniatures with pop culture, Christian and Jewish illuminated manuscripts, and Jewish and Hindu mythology, Siona also brings her canvas characters to life through animation and performance dance artists.[7] The multicultural, syncretic quality of her art is underlined in the film Blue Like Me, directed by Hal Rifken.[20][21]

Depictions of Women

Most of the figures in Benjamin's work are women. A subgroup of the Finding Home series[22] is subtitled "Fereshteh," which means "angel" in Urdu. The major characters in the Fereshteh series are women of the Bible. However, when men appear in this series, they are actually women in the guise of men.[19] Miriam is seen in three works. In one, she is carrying a suitcase and walking—possibly out of Egypt—dressed in traditional Indian attire; in a second, she is ill and surrounded by demons, and in the third, she is shown as a Persian angel caught in a spider's web.[23] Lilith, on the other hand, is shown in three pop art versions. Lilith is traditionally seen as a seductress and a destroyer, but Benjamin views Lilith, Adam's first wife, as also being the first feminist.[19] In one of the works (Finding Home #74 (Fereshteh) "Lilith"), she is wearing a protective amulet that might normally be worn as protection from her, and Lilith's speech balloon says "A thousand of years have I waited keeping the embers of revenge glowing in my heart."[19] She is shown with angel wings and a background of flames.[19] Rachel, Leah, and Esther are amongst others included in the series.[23]

Her 2014 gouache on paper series, The Four Mothers Who Entered Pardes, includes works showing Rachel, Sara, Leah, and Rebecca entering paradise, rather than the four wise men who, according to a Jewish legend, entered Pardes, or Paradise, in the first century C.E.[19][24]

Tikkun olam

Few things are more cherished in Jewish tradition than tikkun olam, which translates to "mending the world". Observant Jews practice tikkun olam every day in their thoughts and actions. As Abraham Joshua Herschel has posed when asked, "Who is a Jew?" he replied: "A Jew is a person whose integrity decays when unmoved by the knowledge of wrong done to other people." Through study and reflection, Benjamin has made tikkun olam central to her art.

References
  1. Habib, Shahnaz (30 September 2013). "Blue Like Her: What identity means to Siona Benjamin". The Caravan. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  2. Wecker, Menachem (3 April 2015). "Siona Benjamin: An artist who paints from the East". My Jewish Learning. Archived from the original on 19 December 2022. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
  3. "Siona Benjamin - Photography - From Motherland to Fatherland". Fulbright Split Screen. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  4. Strasnick, Stephanie (April 2013). "Critics Pick Vol. 112 Issue 4, p112-112. 1p". ARTnews. 112 (4): 112. ISSN 0004-3273.
  5. "Siona Benjamin". The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Jewish Women's Archive. Archived from the original on 19 December 2022. Retrieved 4 June 2022.
  6. "Siona Benjamin's New Fulbright Fellowship". Jewish Art Salon. 3 February 2016. Archived from the original on 3 March 2023. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  7. Wallner, Susan (20 February 2013). "Blue Like Me: The Paintings of Siona Benjamin at Stockton Art Gallery". NJ Spotlight News. Archived from the original on 3 March 2023. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  8. Zimmer, Bill (14 April 2002). "Art Review; Femininity Defined, In Bare Feet or Shoes". The New York Times. pp. WC.10. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 3 March 2023. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  9. Genocchio, Benjamin (18 April 2004). "Mixing Colors, Blending Cultures". New York Times. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  10. Mauro, Lucia (29 March 2006). "Arts serve as peace guide". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018.
  11. Donohoe, Victoria (26 February 2010). "A palette of mixed cultures: Jewish Indian and Pakistani miniature paintings". Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. W.27 – via ProQuest.
  12. Schwartz, Amy; Bellezza, Adrien (1 May 2010). "'I belong everywhere and nowhere'". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2 March 2023. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  13. Goldman, Julia (1 August 2003). "Searching for Home". The New York Jewish Week. Archived from the original on 16 June 2018.
  14. McQuaid, Cate (29 March 2001). "In Lowell Exhibition, a Fusion of South Asian, American Cultures". Boston Globe. pp. C.16 – via ProQuest.
  15. Streitfeld, L. P. (2005). "Siona Benjamin". Art New England. 26 (4): 9, 59. ISSN 0274-7073.
  16. "Blue Angels". Art & Antiques. 40 (3): 33. March 2017. ISSN 0195-8208.
  17. Soltes, Ori Z. (Fall 2012). "Finding Home: The Transcultural Worlds of Siona Benjamin". Feminist Studies. 38 (3): 689–719. doi:10.1353/fem.2012.0054. ISSN 2153-3873. S2CID 245664562 – via EBSCOhost.
  18. Soltes, Ori Z. (Fall 2007). "Finding Home: The Midrashic Art of Siona Benjamin". Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues (14): 173–178. doi:10.2979/nas.2007.-.14.173. ISSN 0793-8934. JSTOR 10.2979/nas.2007.-.14.173. S2CID 162294895 – via EBSCOhost.
  19. Siona., Benjamin (2016). Siona Benjamin : beyond borders. Greenberg, Elizabeth., Soltes, Ori Z., Baigell, Matthew., Rosen, Aaron., Sage Colleges. Opalka Gallery. Albany, New York: Opalka Gallery, The Sage Colleges. ISBN 9780985890070. OCLC 992442467.
  20. "Blue Like Me: The Art of Siona Benjamin". JFilmBox. 16 September 2016. Archived from the original on 25 June 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  21. Marks, Josh (5 November 2015). "Blue Like Me: Jews of India at JCCNV". Washington Jewish Week. Vol. 51, no. 45. pp. 1, 12. ISSN 0746-9373.
  22. "Finding Home". www.artsiona.com. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  23. McBee, Richard (8 October 2008). "Siona Benjamin: Finding Home". Jewish Press. Archived from the original on 5 December 2022. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  24. Halpern, Stu (2020). "Jewish Identity in American Art: A Golden Age Since the 1970's by Matthew Baigell". Jewish Book Council (Book review). Archived from the original on 3 March 2023. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
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