ANEESA SHAMI ZIZZO

ARTIST STATEMENT

Aneesa Shami Zizzo (b. 1992, Shawnee, KS) is a fiber artist reflecting on her identity as a second-generation Arab-American, intertwining personal history, world mythologies and the sublime to explore broader narratives of human experience and cultural memory. Through abstraction, she addresses feelings of ruination and the possibility of renewal by using textile industry waste to create soft sculptures, appliqued tapestries and rug weavings. Drawing from a lineage of craftsmen and quiltmakers, Zizzo taps into her subconscious while methodically hand stitching and knotting, considering the process of constructing and reclaiming one’s identity by attending to shared memory. The resulting meditative works reflect the cyclical nature of storytelling tradition, including tales of destruction, recovery, and hope, that comment on the societal systems contributing to waste and neglect, echoing themes of resilience in the face of adversity.

ANEESA SHAMI ZIZZO

BIO

Aneesa Shami Zizzo is a Los Angeles-based artist exploring shared memory through appliqued tapestries, soft sculpture and paper collage. Zizzo’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Barbican Centre (London, UK), Tribeca Festival (NYC), Craft in America (Los Angeles, CA), Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum (Long Beach, CA), and the Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA), among others. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in both Fiber and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute (Kansas City, MO), and is a recipient of the Arab American National Museum residency (Dearborn, MI), the IOS Willie Stoffer Visual Artist Grant (Inglewood, CA), and the Crafting the Future Microgrant (Los Angeles, CA). Zizzo's work is in the collections of the Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, The Elder Statesmen, Able ARTS Work, and Kancan USA. She is a frequent volunteer at Able ARTS Work in Long Beach, CA, where she collaborates with resident artists on various projects.