My work is driven by the expressive potential of Persian art. I use inspiration from Iranian architecture’s mosaic tiles as an expressive language, with heightened cacophony and viscerality. At the outset of my artistic project, over 25 years ago, I felt that the brutal repression in Iran, and degrading misperceptions of Iranian humanity and culture from the outside, have called for a non-poetic version of a Persian aesthetic. My punk-feminist, playful humor confronted stereotypes and paid tribute to unheard exuberance and dissent of Iranians worldwide, and to the global relevance of their artistic heritage. My unique aesthetic blending complex with cartoonish, exquisite with raw, aimed to find expression for the maddening contradictions between crude stereotypes and rich inspiration, propaganda and humanity, that overwhelmed my Iranian-American experience.
While rich with layers of meaning and intense feeling, my work is enjoyed as an engaging visual experience. In person, my paintings shimmer with tactile, bas-relief surfaces inspired by Iran’s ceramics, enamel and jewelry. Viewers enjoy the rich, jewel-like surfaces, as well as the human touch. Viewers often mention other visual associations in my work, to Chinese Blue and White ceramics, Majolica, Azulejos, Medieval European art, and Matisse. These and so many other associations are enough for me, and give me great joy. I intentionally interweave my Persian influences with other visual histories which have commonalities with, and/or developed from established precedents from, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. My use of ornamentation is, by design, intended to create a space of seamless global connectedness, and to resist erasure.