Artist Statement

This collection is about alienation – expressing constantly changing, fragmented lives.  The figurations in this collection are an allegory to social pressures and psychological traumas, caused either by the endless drudgery of work or by the socio-political ruling systems. Alienation is usually an inevitable consequence of these bureaucracies and leads to distortion and deformation of human personality and life.

I address this situation by compressing and homogenizing my subjects and by placing them in an apocalyptic world where place, time, and even the very appearance of humanity undergo drastic changes. People gradually become alienated from others as well as from themselves and this leads to even more isolation and loneliness. I explore the irreversible psychological damage of force caused by twisting my subjects with fear, isolation, anger, despair, and eventually obedience. Consequently, in some of my works the figures take refuge in buildings that have no comfort and vast emptiness,  only a decaying surveillance site. Here time has lost its credibility and value and the only source of hope is scant rays of light among the shadows.

The initial idea of this collection was formed shortly after I immigrated to the States in 2015. I felt a sort of amputation from my homeland and a kinship with the crushed plastic water bottles that I used to line up on my desk every day. The bottles were pressed and deformed easily just like a person under pressure and that was the beginning of an ongoing experiment with various mediums to discover the potential of this symbolic form of the critical and fragile human condition.

Select Artworks

Embracement (2020)

Foroozan Shirghani

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

60 x 72 in

In Pursuit of Light (2021)

Foroozan Shirghani

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

48 x 72 in

Utopia or Dystopia? (2022)

Foroozan Shirghani

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

48 x 72 in

Who Is Looking At Whom? (2021)

Foroozan Shirghani

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

60 x 48 in

The Birth of Light (2019)

Foroozan Shirghani

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

72 x 60 in

Trembling Empire (2023)

Foroozan Shirghani

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

60 x 48 in

Alienation 58 (2021)

Foroozan Shirghani

Charcoal and conte on cardboard

18 x 13 in

Artist Biography

Foroozan Shirghani born in Iran (1981) is a multidisciplinary artist who received her BFA from Tehran Azad Art University in 2004 and her MFA from Alzahra University in 2008. She served as a lecturer and art instructor at the Share Rey Azad university and Shariati University in Tehran between 2008 to 2015. Her work has been featured in over sixty exhibitions worldwide and featured in numerous publications.  She has been living and working in Los Angeles since 2015.

Shirghani’s work stems from her personal experiences and focuses on psychological and socio-political issues, especially identity boundaries.  Her art explores universal themes of displacement, alienation, and loss and pressure exerted on the human body by these forces. She addresses these life-altering situations by fragmenting, deforming, and often destruction of her subjects and mediums. In her work, objects have a symbolic nature expressing social behaviors.

Shirgani works across mediums, including painting, drawing, ceramic sculptures, abstract video, and textiles.

Press

ArtNowLA, LA Weekly

ADVOCARTSY is a contemporary art platform specializing in Iranian contemporary art.

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