Artists Registry
New York City NY United States
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Artist's Statement
Statement of Work
The world's two tallest standing statues of Buddha were destroyed on March 11, 2001 in Bamiyan, Afghanistan by the fundamentalist Taliban rulers and Al Qaida. These statues were of tremendous importance to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan. Their destruction was not just an eradication of ancient beauty and inspiration but also a savage act of censorship and intolerance. This event was met with worldwide condemnation and was a sad harbinger of the violence to come exactly six months later in America on September 11th.
In response to both these tragic events, I created a body of work to give remembrance to the splendor and peace of these two towering Buddhas. These artworks were created by painting a seated Buddha over an image of one of the two colossal statues, symbolizing the state of meditation, serene and indestructible.
Some of these artworks were exhibited at the United Nations as well as in the 5 year traveling exhibition, "The Missing Peace: Artists consider the Dalai Lama".
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Andra Samelson is a multi-media artist whose work includes installation, prints, drawing, painting, and sculpture. A recurring theme in her work has been the relationship of microcosm and macrocosm. She explores the inherent cosmic nature of ordinary objects in our everyday world, and the way in which molecular and galactic systems mirror each other. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College and is a recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been exhibited extensively in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe including ODETTA, the Salena Gallery, Five Myles, Main Window, Trestle Gallery, Site Brooklyn, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, and a retrospective at the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. Samelson’s work was in the traveling exhibition "The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama" which has been in museums in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Madrid ,Tokyo, and Stockholm. In conjunction with this exhibition, an interview with her was aired on PBS in 2007. She has been a visiting artist at the University of Virginia and the ceramics factory Ditta Grazia Majoliche Artistiche in Deruta, Italy and her public artwork, commissioned by New Jersey Transit, is permanently on view at the Hudson Bergen Light Rail’s Second Street Station in Hoboken, NJ. She was commission by the Loyola University Museum of Art to create a permanent stained glass window for their lobby. Her work has been reproduced and reviewed in the New York Times, Art Forum, New York Arts, New American Painting and elsewhere, and is represented in several private and public collections including the Rubin Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Jones, and the Loyola University Museum of Art. Samelson received a B.A.from Sarah Lawrence College. At present she lives and works in both New York City and Delhi, NY.