Syma
Syma · Source: New York Artists Circle · Rights retained by the original rights holders
- Medium
- Clay, Encaustic, Found Objects, Paper, Pencil/Colored Pencil
- Practice
- Collage, Drawing, Installation, Interactive, Public/Site Specific, Sculpture
Syma is an award-winning, New York artist who has been working with clay for nearly five decades. Primarily working from home since the onset of the pandemic, she is exploring new ways of creating art. Full biography
Biography
Syma is an award-winning, New York artist who has been working with clay for nearly five decades. Primarily working from home since the onset of the pandemic, she is exploring new ways of creating art.
Inspired by ancient artifacts and mythologies, Syma’s interactive/ conceptual clay sculptures, vessels, and gallery installations are her response to wishes, dreams, and worries. Syma’s large-scale sculpted panels are permanently installed on walls of public and private buildings in the US and UK, and her ceramic jewelry has been featured at London, England’s Lesley Craze Gallery.
Grants and awards include residencies at MAD Museum; an NEA stipend; an EARTHWATCH fellowship for an archaeological dig in Mallorca, Spain; a residency at A.I.R. Vallauris, France. Collectors include Agnes Vares, NY, NY.; Susan Paine, Cambridge, MA.; Michael Heller, of Heller Gallery, NY; Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA; Yuko Nii Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA.
A teaching artist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1999, Syma earned her B.S. in Psychology and Art from the University of Pittsburgh and has continued her training in New York, New England, and the UK.
Artist statement
I am inspired by artifacts, mythologies
and multi-modal community ceremonies
of ancient cultures.
Using ceramic clay and air-dry paper clay
with mixed media,
I create conceptual/ ceremonial
vessels, sculptures, and gallery installations
as my favorite response to
personal wishes, dreams, and worries.
Now I am playfully revisiting intentions
held by my younger self,
for my artworks
to be more inclusive,
to reference magical thinking,
and suggest stories of goddesses,
as well as histories
that might be
universal as well as private,
I hope that my artwork will offer
opportunities to feel, think, listen, as well as see.
I hope that my artwork will invite viewers.
to engage
in real or imagined
personal celebrations
and ceremonies
that might assist
toward a desired transformation…
