Biography

Gizella Varga Sinai, Artist

Background / Education
I was born in Hungary in 1944. I studied art education at the “Akademie for Angewandte Kunst” in Vienna/Austria and came to Iran in 1967.

Ever since my childhood, I was pre-occupied with our own Hungarian stories, which do not date back to more than 1000 years. Historians presume that we came from the East; our famous poets and painters have created works expressing this nostalgia for the Orient as an ancestral homeland.

With this background, I came to Iran where a powerful and heroic past is sensed. It was my duty as an artist to pursue the tie between the past and the present and to show it in my paintings. Where did the old myths, fables, and stories come from? How can we express that they are still alive in us, that they now exist, and will continue in the future?

During my years in Iran, I have gone through the following artistic periods:
1. From West to East – 1968-1977
2. Blind Dolls – 1980
3. Echo of Silence – 1986
4. The South and its Masks – 1999
5. Images and Walls – 1989, 2003, 2005
6. Travel Diary – Safar Nameh – 2005 to …

Teaching Experiences
1. Teaching at Moaser Studio (1981-87).
2. Teaching at German School, Tehran (1986-2003).
3. Organizing and facilitating workshops in Iran and abroad (2003 to date).

Memberships
1. Society of Iranian Painters (2001)
2. Dena Group (2001)