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Biographic Summary Updated May 8, 2009 She received Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Joint Program of the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1970, and Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute in 1978. She is also an alumnus of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She has taught art at the Institute of Fine Arts of Tehran and National and Farabi Universities of Iran intermittently between the years of 1970 and 1979. Sonia Balassanian has exhibited in many of New York City’s most esteemed venues; having individual as well as group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Sculpture Center, Exit Art, Franklyn Furnace, etc. She has also exhibited her work in Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and South Carolina. Her work has been displayed internationally in Iran, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, as well as in Armenia. In 1975 her poetry was published for the first time in the 18th edition of “Nor Ej” (New Page) an Armenian literary periodical in Iran. After the 1979 events in Iran Sonia Balassanian changed direction and started concentrating on social and political issues related to atrocities of war and ensuing sufferings of trapped population, aswell as human rights, women’s emancipation issues, etc. The artist who started as an abstract painter turned to “political art” and became a social activist. Sonia Balassanian has published 2 books of selected poems in Armenian in New York (“There Might Have Been and Insane Heart”, 1982 and “To Present Dreams of Emotions to the Noisy Rain”, 1991, which later have been republished in a single volume in Yerevan, in 2006). She also published the first edition of “Portraits” (an album of individually rendered 21 self portraits) in 1983. That book was dedicated to those women who have suffered as a result of political turmoil. The book was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition entitled “Committed to Print” (1988). The second edition of the book “Portraits” was published in 2007, on the occasion of artist’s return to Iran after 30-year of absence, where enlarged digital reproductions of its pages were exhibited at one of the prominent galleries in Tehran. Since 1992 Sonia Balassanian has been involved in helping advance fine arts in Armenia, and presenting Armenian contemporary art in the international arena. In this vein, she has organized and has acted as artistic coordinator of pavilions of the Republic of Armenia at consecutive International Art Biennales of Venice since 1995. In 1994 her involvement in Armenia culminated in founding the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (“NPAK” in Armenian acronym), which since has become an active center where Armenian artists “search” for new means of expression, conduct creative experiments in contemporary art and quest for new frontiers. In Armenia Sonia Balassanian has introduced and helped advance mediums of installation, video art, and multi media events.
Sonia Balassanian (née Amirian) was born on April 8, 1942, in Iran. She currently lives and works in New York City and Yerevan, the Capital of Armenia.