I am a painter open to transformation in my art practice as my life changes. Currently, I am drawn to the complexity and beauty of human body forms. I paint the outer body, but in doing so, I try to communicate the person’s inner psychology and humanness. They’re unclothed because I’m most interested in the innate nature that lies beneath external representations of culture.

Although this is my current focus, my work has gone through redirections of subject matter. For instance, a series of work focused on women wrapped in bandages was a reaction to social issues in Iran that deeply affected me. These are not literal narratives, they are constructed in a way that is open to interpretation because I wish not to illustrate but to evoke emotional intensity.

Sometimes these changes are larger and more permanent. Such a shift happened a decade ago, when I moved from abstract landscapes to my current figurative works. Realism and the human body allow me to record my experience of what is, while also being a vessel for multiple feelings and emotions. In this series, which depicts people asleep, I was interested in expressing vulnerability within chaos, while also being a transitory state between life and death or rebirth into another world and connection to the essence of who we are.

I am also fascinated by portrait painting. This is a way to connect with people in the present, and also a way of remembering and bringing back a person from the past. Self portraits are especially fulfilling as they allow me a self-discovery at a deeper level.

Another area of my work has come from a recent move to southern Florida. The feeling of awe and tranquility I experience when I look at the ocean reminds me how fundamentally we are connected to nature. It felt so right for me to explore this relationship. In this series I have used limited toned colors to create a mystery and atmosphere to induce the meditative state I feel when standing in front of the waves. 

All my paintings, from figurative to land/seascapes are built in many layers, glazing and refining, sometimes over months, to create the richness that is almost impossible to achieve any other way. Art, even the act of creating it, reflects life. Art is what comes from an obsession with living.