ARTIST STATEMENT

I could say that I live two lives and so does my art.  My art is drenched with a sense of divide.  By birth, I am an Iranian, but when I was eighteen years old I immigrated to the United States of America.  The clash of cultures placed me in a state of limbo and since then I’ve been struggling to hold on to a fading identity. 

In this ambiguous state, I reach for the essence of my being as it tries to find a comfortable landing spot in the western world.  Confusion, fear, and a lingering sense of melancholy lurk underneath the layers of my art.  In my work, visual elements of my birth-land become isolated symbols of my memory.  As these elements lay on the surface of my work, they morph into something deeply personal.  Lavish patterns of Persian tiles submerged in blues, glide on the panel as they intermingle with the rhythmic Persian script.  Memories and experiences from the past and the fear of a disappearing future merge with my concerns and questions about today’s chaos around the world.  I hope that at this point my personal concerns and fears can become shared experiences with the viewer.

My work is a search for one’s identity.  It deals with wanting to belong, wanting to survive the conflict of cultures.  My art strives to merge the East and the West as it tries to find a middle ground to call home, my sweet home.