In Onyx, she explores different mythologies, interweaving multiple timelines. Carefully constructed, her images will be multilayered, fusing the architectural and the organic forms through the use of photographic and hand-painted materials. Meditative, they will seek to induce the viewer into a trance-like state, guiding him/her through lights and shadows towards a deeper metaphysical meaning, or rather towards an intuition that there are interstices in the Being which also function like portals to the beyond. One would be invited to give in to a constantly changing, transformative flux of images, losing oneself in the multiplicity of historic and poetic references.

Raha Raissnia was born in 1968 in Tehran, Iran, she lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
She describes her work as belonging to the field of “Expanded Cinema” in which simultaneous practices of painting, live projection and installation create the corpus of a work that declines itself materially in painting, drawing, filmmaking, and now photography. The multidisciplinary interconnectedness of Raha Raissnia’s work creates a complex mise-en-abime between architectonic elements and biomorphic geometry, shifting the viewer’s perspective between an anatomy of living organisms and advanced electronic circuitry, while passing through an array of influences and references very carefully selected from high-art and popular culture alike, such as architectural drawings, the labyrinthic twists and turns of 20th Century “Wild Style” graffiti, and Classical Islamic calligraphy.

* Due to unforeseen circumstances, Raha Raissnia can not be present. She will introduce the screening via a video conference.