I was born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in the United States. I have a Bachelor of Arts in art history and the practice of art from the University of California, Berkeley.
Through my art, I investigate the ephemerality of beauty. In my approach to painting, I counter-balance minimalist restraint with detailed, repetitive brush-strokes. My paintings explore contrasts: East versus West, moderation versus excess, and handmade versus machine made. The labor intensiveness and minuteness of my work is influenced by Persian miniature painting, calligraphy, and weaving practices in the East and Latin America. Because I paint with subtle layers of metallic and fluorescent color on a largely white background, my paintings continually reflect and deflect changes in light, and this adds a degree of impermanence and uncertainty to my work. The horizontal lines in my paintings serve as a metaphor for language, and allude to how meaning can be both conveyed and concealed. The lines I paint are symbolic of, and replacements for, highlighted pieces of “text” that together create imaginary, abstract landscapes. I describe my images as white noise—a blackout of overt meaning and the visualization of sound through light and color.
In addition to my painting practice, I am also an avid photographer. The imagery I document in photography–solitary settings, discarded objects, and lost balloons chronicle the momentariness of joy, and our presence in a world with an undefined future. Photographs are inherently precise moments in time, but through my photography, I strive to capture images that are more uncertain.
I currently live and work in New York City.