About Blue Like Me & Siona Benjamin
Blue Like Me is a growing wearable art company inspired by the paintings of Siona Benjamin. After painting about her incredible transcultural journey for over three decades, Siona felt her art could be transformed into wearable & useful items. The feedback was so overwhelming, Blue Like Me was born, SionaWare debuted with shawls and scarves.
The name Blue Like Me represents the strength and clarity of the ocean and sky, while also tracing Siona's journey growing up Jewish in Hindu and Muslim India, and her personal feeling of an outsider looking in.
About Siona Benjamin
Siona Benjamin is a painter originally from Bombay, now living in the US. Her work reflects her background of being raised Jewish in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India. In her paintings, she combines the imagery of her past with the role she plays in America today, making a mosaic inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Sephardic icons.
Siona earned her first MFA in painting and a second MFA in theater set design. She has exhibited her work in the US, Canada, Europe, Israel, India, and Asia. Siona's talent has also been commissioned to design several projects.
Recently, Siona was awarded her second Fulbright Fellowship for a project entitled: Motherland to Fatherland: Indian Transcultural Jews in Israel, in fall 2016. In 2010-11, she also received a Fulbright Fellowship for an art project entitled: Faces: Weaving Indian Jewish Narratives. Research for this project was conducted in India, and debuted in April 2013 at the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, India.
Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Jewish Week, The St. Louis Dispatch, The Boston Globe, The Albany Times Union, Art in America, Art New England, Art and Antiques, Montclair magazine, Moment magazine and more.
