VOLTA NEW YORK 2022

Artists: Morteza Pourhosseini, Atieh Sohrabi, Faraneh and Bahareh Safarani, Roxanna Manouchehri, Parastoo Ahovan, Azita Moradkhani.

This exhibition brings together works by 6 contemporary Iranian artists whose works reflect personal and deeply rooted sentimental attachments to the nostalgic world of stories and memories. Through this array of artworks, the exhibition portrays and examines how our memories and deeply rooted attachments to our homeland and its stories reflect and shape our personal perceptions of beauty and sentimentality and on a larger scale influence our life experiences and worldview. The proposed artworks for this exhibition transform poetry and storytelling into visual mediums and in doing so preserve past narratives while transforming them into expressions of present-day issues.

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Born in Ahvaz/ Iran 1985, Morteza Pourhosseini holds a BA in Paintings from Shahed Art University in Tehran. He has had numerous Solo and group exhibitions in Iran, the US, France, Germany, Lebanon and the UAE. He is the winner of many awards, including Tehran's Fajr Festival prize in 2018, Club UNESCO of Piraeus for participating for Second Mosco International Art Fair and the best book cover award for ''Jewels of Allah'' in the US in 2016. His artworks are in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, the Salsali Private Museum in Dubai and important private collections internationally. Pourhosseini is a member of the association of Iranian painters and an honorary member in the field of painting. Morteza has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Iran and internationally and has participated in international Art Fairs in Malaysia, Lebanon, England and the UAE. He lives and works in Tehran, Iran.

Atieh Sohrabi was born in Tehran in 1976 and currently lives in New York City. As a freelance Illustrator and artist, Atieh Sohrabi majored in Industrial Design in 2001 from Azad Art University in Tehran, and later decided to switch into illustrations. Atieh's books have been included in various museum exhibitions around the world, i.e. the Biennale of Illustrations Bratislava (2003, 2009, 2015), Biennale of Illustration Golden Pen Belgrade (2005, 2007, 2009), 24th BIB Exhibition in Hiratsuka Art Museum, Kawara Museum of Takahama City Chiba City Museum of Art, Ashikaga Museum of Art, Urawa Art Museum in Japan (2014), Society of Illustrators in NYC, Illustrators59 (2016) and more. She has been the recipient of numerous international and national awards throughout her career including The Diploma of Honor, 200th Birthday of Hans Christian Andersen Children Book Council of Iran (2005), The Runner-up Prize, Noma Concours, Japan (2006), The Diploma of Honor, The 11th,12th, and 13th Salam Book Festival, The Diploma of Honor, Children’s Book Council of Iran (IBBY) (2015), and more. She moved to New York in 2015. She published her three art notebooks as a collection in Iran in 2018. She was part of a group exhibition in White Wall Space Gallery in 2019 and one of her works was acquired by LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum. Recently Atieh’s work was featured in NPR Podcasts Code Switch.

Twin sisters, Bahareh and Farzaneh Safarani (Iranian, b. 1990) began painting at the age of thirteen. They earned their B.A. in painting from Tehran University and M.F.A from Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts. Currently working and residing in Massachusetts, over the past few years the Safarani sisters took on a journey in incorporating video and performance art into their passion for painting. Their pioneering video-paintings and performances have been acclaimed as thought provoking and transformative artistic contributions that weave together loose but striking narratives. Safarani Sisters have participated in numerous Solo and Group exhibitions, including “Projecting Her”, Adelson Galleries Boston 2016, “Reincarnation”, 2018 and “Sprinkle of Light”, 2021 with Roya Khadjavi Projects, New York, “Preview Exhibition” in Adelson Galleries, Palm Beach, Florida, “Body Double”, Morris Museum New Jersey. Their works can be found in numerous museums and private collections, including Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Massachusetts. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. Morris Museum, Morris town, New Jersey.

Roxanna Manouchehri is an Iranian/Irish visual artist and curator based in Dublin. She received an MFA in Fine Art from the Tehran University of Art and has worked and lived in Dublin since 2009. Her ‘Why I make art’ video was shown with the New Voices of Ireland series 8 with CFCP, Ireland in 2021. She recently curated the virtual exhibition for Art Nomads with Smashing Times Arts & Human Rights Festival and ‘Five steps left’ video at MIM Gallery, Santa Monica LA. She has been teaching art and giving talks and workshops, since 1995 in different universities and museums in Tehran, Seoul, and Dublin, including Trinity College, the Chester Beatty collection, Open House Dublin, Mother Tongues Festival and IMMA. She has been in different artist residencies including Chang Dong in Seoul, South Korea, Rauma, Finland, Canserrat, Barcelona and Belmont Mill studios, County Offaly, Ireland. She has had more than 50 group exhibitions internationally and 17 solo exhibitions in Tehran, Seoul, Dubai, Madrid, Munich, London, Brussels, Rauma, and Dublin, including the RHA and the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. Her works are in some important private and public collections, such as OPW, AIB bank, AXA insurance in Dublin and Asia Art Network in Seoul. She won the Diversity award by solstice art Centre and create in 2021.

Parastoo Ahovan is a visual artist who lives and works in New York City. She holds an MFA from Boston University in 2014. Her works include various materials and multiple mediums, such as painting, sculpture, installation, mixed media, video, and performance. She has exhibited her works in National Pavilion of Iran, Venice Biennial, Italy. Mykonos Biennial, Athens, Greece. International Biennial Art Olympia, Tokyo, Japan. Festival Fleurs de Lava, Clermont-Ferrand, France. Magic In LA Auction Gala, Bonhams Auction House, LA. A.I.R Gallery, “The Beginning Choice’’, Brooklyn, NY. Nave Gallery, Boston MA. Imago Mundi art, international group show, Italy, Changsha International Sculpture Festival, Chansha, China. Santa Isabel de Hungaria, Sevilla, Spain. LTMH Gallery, New York, NY, 1st Tehran International Sculpture Symposium, The 1st Sculpture Biennial for Urban Space, Barg Gallery, 16th International Symposium of stone sculpture in Friuli Venezia Giuliareana Del Rojale, Italy, 1st International Sculpture symposium of Uttarayan, Vadodara, India, 1st International Sculpture Symposium of Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey, Magic of Persia contemporary art prize, London, UK, her sculptures are installed in urban space in China, France, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Turkey, and UAE. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Azita Moradkhani was born in Tehran where she was exposed to Persian art, as well as Iranian politics, and that double exposure increased her sensitivity to the dynamics of vulnerability and violence that she now explores in her art-making. She received her BFA from Tehran University of Art (2009), and both her MA in Art Education (2013) and her MFA in drawing, painting & sculpture (2015) from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts & Tufts University. She was a recipient of both the Young Masters Art Prize and the Young Masters Emerging Woman Art Prize in London in 2017. She received the Saint Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artists Grant that same year as well as the NYFA City Artist Corps Grants in 2021. The Financial Times (London) reviewed her series of drawings “Victorious Secrets” and the Boston Globe (MA) published reviews of her collaborative performance piece “Irezumi,” and her curated exhibition “Echo” over the past few years. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally many times, including at the Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK), Newport Art Museum (RI, USA), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Yinchuan, China). She has also been a visiting artist/lecturer at universities such as Davidson College (NC), Lesley University (MA), and the Parsons School of Design (NY), as well as a panelist at Harvard University, Southern New Hampshire University, and MIT. She has been granted numerous residencies, including Yaddo, Virginia Center For the Creative Arts (VCCA), McColl Center For Art + Innovation, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Silver Art Projects, and LMCC.