Saj Issa
Bio
Saj Issa is a multidisciplinary artist from St. Louis, Missouri. She received her BFA with an emphasis in ceramics from Webster University in 2017. Her work has been exhibited in Arcade Gallery, Kranzberg Arts Foundation, Art St. Louis, and featured work in NCECA 2019 at the Katheryn E Nash Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Issa is currently a 2019-20 Foundations Artist-In-Residence at Belger Crane Yard Studio in Kansas City, Missouri.
Artist Statement
I am denied of my Palestinian ancestral history and cultural existence. In response, I reinterpret domestic objects that reference my personal experiences to religion, politics, and parallels of the East and West. My work is a representation about my personal experiences of displacement, identity, and social issues.
In my work, I fabricate domestic objects to reveal an undercurrent of hostility and discomfort in the social, cultural, and political landscape. There is an inherent psychological relationship with domestic objects; they can refer to the body even when it is not present. I alter ordinary objects to express and communicate the social and political issues that I experience. My art manifests in traditional craft mediums: clay, fibers, and embroidery. This allows the narrative to directly reference to my culture through traditional domestic objects.
I want my viewers to be provoked, informed, and entertained by my work. I position myself as a sardonic commentator through overlapping hypocrisies that each culture is guilty of, yet finger points the blame in the other direction; it is reflective upon my observation as an individual situated on both sides. As I put form to these social overlaps, it is an attempt to bring awareness to viewers of their own similarities to the side they position themselves against.
Exhibitions
