I've come to appreciate the interwoven complexities of understanding who you are and where you came from. History is a fascinating subject. It reveals pieces about the path we tread and the path of others. Knowing one's past can provide the tools necessary to change the present and give hope to a better future. The domino of my life begins, as do all, with my parents. In a whirlwind of events, my father moved to the States from Tehran, Iran during the flight of Persians fleeing the consequences of the Iranian Revolution. He met my mother in Reno, NV where the chances of running into a young, handsome Persian had never existed just a few years before. I stand here today as a monument between the fusion of peoples, nations, and civilizations in all ways positive and negative. I hope that my work will be a bridge of curiosity between the known and the unknown, or overlooked portions of our humanity.
Bachelor of Art (concentration in Fine Arts),Walla Walla College, Washington.
I plan on completing my Masters at Portland State University after receiving a couple years experience working in the "real world", and developing my art and direction.
Since beginning college I have always held a job while studying. For two years I worked full time and studied full time, but for as much as I work I play. I spent a year traveling, studying and living in Alberta, Canada, which was my first eye opener to the world (you know, that one outside the US). While attending Walla Walla College, I helped co-create the Red Door Gallery, a co-op gallery envisioned to provide a space for music, poetry, and art inside the downtown area.
In 2005 I married the love of my life, and let me tell you if that's not experience I don't know what is! I mean that with much love and absolutely no sarcasm. Immediately after, my wife Kristy and I moved to France to study art, history and French language. The friendships and experience we encountered there will be with us for the rest of our lives.
At present, I am voluteering my time at the Portland Art Museum, which has introduced me to many artists and aspects of the art world I have come to appreciate.
Why Art?
I am irresistibly drawn to the dynamics of relationships. This concept dominates my thoughts, my life, and needless to say my art. Perhaps the single greatest attribute of the human race is its ability to define, create, and ascertain complex relationships. However, this complexity is a substance of feeling, which is reactive and immediate. My work revolves around the idea that the viewer derives the meaning. Just as a cook prepares a dish, which is physical and barren of comprehension, yet when it reaches the lips of the taster, the stimuli of the tongue directly recalls the experiences of the self, thus becoming meaning to them. Using this simplicity, I build layers over my own experience and bias attempting to simultaneously understand myself, the physical world and myself. I begin with basic building blocks working from general to specific. Eventually a line forms a shape, shapes form a thought, thoughts form a subject, and the subject being illuminated with paint becomes art, built by emotion and understanding. It may seem like an oversimplification and it is; yet I leave the complexities to be found by the viewer. I paint with simple words, and with a language inherent in us all. So when you view my intent of my mind, the meaning may lie not so far from your own experiences.