Born in Brazil and based in Lebanon, Sirin is a Lebanese-Brazilian visual artist and educator shaped by a deeply multicultural background. Having lived between cultures, her work and teaching practice are informed by an ongoing exploration of identity, memory, and perception.
Sirin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Lebanese American University (LAU), where she received a Certificate of Recognition in Fine Arts for her outstanding performance in studio courses. She further developed her artistic practice through a residency at Beirut Printmaking Studios.
Throughout her years as an art student, Sirin learned to engage with personal experiences as a foundation for artistic inquiry. Her longstanding tendency to forget belongings and details of everyday life led her to reflect on the instability of memory and the ways in which experiences are preserved, altered, or lost over time. This awareness has become a central focus of her artistic practice.
Working primarily with acrylic and oil painting alongside experimental candle sculptures, Sirin uses materiality to investigate themes of fragility, transformation, and impermanence. Through her work, she explores the process of reconstructing memories and examines the relationship between remembrance, perception, and time.
In parallel with her studio practice, Sirin is an experienced visual arts educator specializing in the IB curriculum.
Sirin Saifi – Lost Objects
Artist Statement
When scrolling through photos on my phone, I am sometimes reminded of things that have been forgotten; past moments that I couldn’t recall happening, lost objects whose existence I didn’t remember.
Each item has its own unique function and characteristics, and its “thingness” is determined by its state, quality, existence, and objective, as described by the Philosopher Heidegger. The memories of our belongings are intertwined with our own personal stories, making them more than mere objects. In other words, it is easier to describe a lost object when you remember what it provided for you, how it was used, or the role it played in our daily lives than through an accurate recollection of its physical appearance.
Lost Objects is a series of oil sketches on kraft paper painted entirely from memory. The images are built from fragments of recollection, reconstructed layer by layer through remembered functions, sensations, and partial visual details. Rather than aiming for faithful representation, the works embrace gaps, distortions, and uncertainties, reflecting the way memory reshapes what is absent. Through this process, the paintings become both records of loss and attempts to preserve what remains.
