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About Aida Izadpanah

 

Born in Tehran, Iran – 1977

Lives and works in New York

Bio

Aida Izadpanah lives and works in New York City, specializing in large-format mixed media and porcelain sculptural painting. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Psychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a master’s degree in Urban Planning from Tehran University (Iran). She was a Teaching Assistant in mixed media at The Art Students League of New York (ASL) from 2012-14. Recent solo exhibitions include Emancipation (Stony Brook, New York, 2017), Transcendence (New York City, 2015), and Revelation (Los Angeles, 2013). Recent group shows include Volta Art Fair (NYC, 2020), Summer Art Bash 2019: Iranian Contemporary Group Exhibition (L.A., 2019), Material Culture (NYC , 2019), Art Brief IV: Iranian Contemporary San Francisco (San Francisco, 2018), An Art + Design Collaboration: A Curated Selection of Iranian Contemporary Art, ADVOCARTSY and Ryan Saghian (Los Angeles, 2018), If So, What?(San Francisco, 2018), The Poetics of Diaspora: Iranian Contemporary Art (L.A., 2017), States of Being in Abstract (NYC, 2016), Art Brief II: Iranian Contemporary North America (Santa Monica, 2016), ASL Grant Winners Exhibition (NYC, 2016), In the Abstract (Setauket, 2016), and Global Perspective (Bridgehampton and Riverdale, 2015). Distinctions include shortlisted finalist for the 2017 inaugural Behnam Bakhtiar Award(Cote d’Azur, France, 2017); Artist in Residence at Stony Brook University’s Undergraduate College in Arts, Culture, and Humanities (New York, 2017); Fantasy Fountain Fund painting fellowship (Paris, France, 2014); cover story in Lines from the League magazine (2014); distinction and exhibition of Revelation 26 by Chief Curator & Director of Collections of the National September 11 Memorial Museum (2013); and the Jeffery Berman Director’s Award in Collage or Mixed Media from Audubon Artists (2012).

Artist Statement

I call my abstraction work texture-field paintings. They are deeply associated with the passage of time and therefore, inevitably, with diverse contexts. In my opinion, abstraction is the purest form of artistic creation; it powerfully affects viewers because its immediacy does not rely on mental processing of representations.  I am very attracted to the layering of textures, so I incorporate a lot of mixed media in these pieces, including for example, sand, various binding mediums, and my hand-made, painted, and fired porcelain creations. My paintings engage in the movement of energies through color, texture, and space. They are characterized by restless practices of scraping and carving away at impressions of incompleteness, yet these works also aspire to a natural state of presence and acceptance. They might be thought of as responses to a primary essence of experience, as Persian poet Sohrab Sepehri describes it: “Words should be washed to become the wind itself, the rain itself.” I like to think of my mixed media paintings as meditations on itselfness.

The Revelation series is the emotional and visual vestige of meditations encompassing canvases in acrylic, cement, spackle, sawdust, and other mediums. The deliberate interplay of these constructive elements with the deconstructive phenomena they evoke offers encouragement in the face entropy’s indifferent forces: to accept but not assent to the constant degeneration of matter and meaning. These works both comprise and inspire an intimate engagement with the aesthetic experience of time, whereby sanctuary may be attained in the beauty of the present moment that is innocent of its own passing. These effects emerge directly from and speak to experiences of displacement, whether of the Persian diaspora—as in my own case—through migration more generally, or from alienating episodes anyone might experience in the course of their sentient existence.

 

History

Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Psychology, 2012
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Master of Arts in Urban Planning, 2003
University of Tehran, Iran

Bachelor of Arts in Theoretical Economics, 1999
University of Tehran, Iran

Mentorship in Painting and Mixed Media,  2007-2013
Bruce Dorfman, Art Students League of New York, NYC

 

Solo Painting Exhibitions

• Emancipation, Tabler Center for Arts, Culture, and Humanities, Stony Brook, NY, Apr. 2017
• Transcendence, Narthex Gallery, New York, NY, May-July 2015
• Revelation, Seyhoun Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Dec. 2013

 

Group Painting Exhibitions

• An Art + Design Collaboration: A Curated Selection of Iranian Contemporary Art, ADVOCARTSY and Ryan Saghian, THE SPACE, Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 2018
• If So, What? Art Fair, Roya Khadjavi Projects, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA, Apr. 2018
• The Poetics of Diaspora: Iranian Contemporary Art, Artnet Auction in collaboration with ADVOCARTSY, The Space, Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 2017
• States of Being in Abstract, Roya Khadjavi Projects and Asia Contemporary Art Week, Elga Wimmer Gallery, New York, NY, Nov. 2016
• Grant Winners Exhibition. Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, NY, NY, Nov. 2016
• In The Abstract, Gallery North, Setauket, NY, July-Aug. 2016
• Art Brief II: Iranian Contemporary North America, Advocartsy, Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, June 2016
• 73rd Annual Exhibition of Audubon Artists, Incorporated, Salmagundi Art Club New York, NY, Oct.-Nov. 2015
• Global Perspective, Elisa Contemporary Art, Bridgehampton and Riverdale, NY, Nov.-Jan. 2015
• Affordable Art Fair, Elisa Contemporary Art, New York, NY, Apr. 2014
• Alwan for the Arts Auction, Shirin Gallery, 511 West 25th St., Suite 507, NY, NY, June 2014
• 100th Annual Exhibition of the Allied Artists of America, The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY, Nov. 2013
• 71st Annual Exhibition of Audubon Artists, Incorporated, Salmagundi Art Club (online due to gallery repairs), Oct.-Dec. 2013
• Manhattan Borough President’s Offices Exhibition, 1 Centre Street, 19th Fl., New York, NY, July-Aug. 2013
• Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery Red Dot Exhibition, Art Students League, 215 West 57th Street, New York, NY, June 2013
• Gramercy Neighborhood Associates Annual Arts Exhibit, The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY, 2013
• 99th Annual Exhibition of the Allied Artists of America, The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY, 2012
• 70th Annual Exhibition of Audubon Artists, Incorporated, Salmagundi Art Club (online due to gallery repairs). Award-winner, Oct.-Dec. 2012
• Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery Annual Exhibition, Art Students League, 215 West 57th Street, New York, NY, 2009-2013
• 12/12: Arts United for Iran, West Chelsea Building, 526 W. 26th Street, NY, NY, 2009

 

Distinctions

• BEHNAM BAKHTIAR AWARD, “Future. Iran.” Fondation Behnam Bakhtiar – Shortlisted Finalist 2017 (decision pending), Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Cote d’Azur, France.
• Artist in Residence of the College of Arts, Culture and Humanities, Stony Brook University – Awardee, Stony Brook, NY, Spring 2017
• Sing for Hope Pianos project – Commissioned Selectee, NYC, Spring 2016
• Fantasy Fountain Fund Scholarship, sponsoring a month of painting in Paris, France – Scholarship Winner, July 2014
• Painting Revelation 26 chosen among 1,900 submissions by Jan Seidler Ramirez, Chief Curator & Director of Collections of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, for online exhibition by Curate NYC, Nov. 2013
• The Jeffery Berman Director’s Award in Collage or Mixed Media, Audubon Artists Incorporated – Recipient, 2012 Annual Exhibition
• Women’s International Leadership Program, International House, New York City – Scholarship Winner, 2006-2007
• Member: Art Students League of New York, Allied Artists of America, New York Artists Equity Association

 

Instruction

• In-Studio Porcelain Painting Instruction, New York City, 2009-present
  Private and group classes, all levels
• Children’s Art Workshop and Art History Instruction (freelance), 2015-present
  Metropolitan Museum of Art, Asia Society, Children’s Museum of Manhattan
• Art Students League of New York, New York City, 2012-2014
  Teacher Assistant to Bruce Dorfman, Mixed Media class
• The Isabel O’Neil Studio Workshop, New York City, June 2012
  Porcelain Painting Instructor

 

Books Authored

• A Humanitarian Rhetoric of Multimedia Representations of War-Affected Children. In Progress, expected 2018. (In English)
• Child, Play and City: Processes, Principles and Criteria for Planning and Design of Children’s Play Spaces. Tehran: Shahrdariha, 2004. (In Persian)

 

Bibliography

• Hrbacek, Mary. “New York City’s Elga Wimmer PCC with Group Show: ‘Material Culture.’” Artes Magazine: A Fine Arts Magazine. 11 Apr. 2019.
• Memarian, Omid. “Material Culture Art Exhibition Communicates Deep Personal Experiences to Transcent Cultural Border.” GlobalVoices. Apr. 2019.
• Nesvet, Nancy. “Material Culture at Elga Wimmer Gallery.” Artscope. Apr. 2019.
• “Revelation and Transcendence.” Cover story of LINES from the League magazine. Fall 2015. www.theartstudentsleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/1_2015_Fall_Lines1.pdf.
• “New York City’s Elga Wimmer PCC with Group Show: ‘Material Culture.’” Artes Magazine. 11 Apr. 2019. www.artesmagazine.com/?p=22980.
• “Creativity to Englightenment: Material Culture at Elga Wimmer Gallery.” Artscope. 9 Apr. 2019. www.artscopemagazine.com/2019/04/creativity-to-enlightenment-material-culture-at-elga-wimmer-gallery/#noredirect
• “Art Brief II: Iranian Contemporary North American at Arena 1 Gallery – in pictures.” Art Radar. 1 June 2016. www.artradarjournal.com/2016/06/01/art-brief-ii-iranian-contemporary-north-america-at-arena-1-gallery-in-pictures/.