Artist Biography

Multi-disciplinary artist Delbar Shahbaz works across painting, drawing, sculpture, installation,  and video. 

Of central concern to her practice is the negotiation of gender identity, transformation, and emancipation as well as human connection to the natural realm. Delbar engages with self-identity as fluid, socially constructed, and multifaceted. She responds to her own experiences as a female migrant yet connects her subjectivity to the universal subject matter. 

Over the last two decades, Delbar has moved between various media and conceptual concerns yet a preoccupation with women’s freedoms and liberties unites her oeuvre. Delbar’s compositions mine far-reaching influences, from ancient fertility totems to the writings of outsider female authors. The artist establishes her own fantastical universes where lovable and loathsome creatures –  rendered via textured corporeal forms – embody various facets of the self that enter into dialogue.

Delbar received her MFA from Art University in Tehran, Iran in 2008. She went on to pursue a career as a professional artist and educator before migrating to the USA in 2013. Delbar received her second MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, CA; she has been working as a part-time faculty member there since 2016. Delbar has exhibited as a solo artist and in group shows extensively internationally.