Exquisite Arts Magazine Vol 1 - July/ August 2016 | Page 44

“I was born and raised in Southern California but I am of Iranian and Mexican heritage. I am
a recent MFA graduate of San Diego State University. It is my feeling that the immediacy
and continual nature of social media is creating greater anxiety, compulsion, and fear
within our society and I am interested in exploring this in my work. The paintings, sculptures,
and installations are an investigation into the anxious and existential nature of the human
mind at the present. My intention is for the viewer to experience and have a visceral
reaction to the work.
I want the light in my work to represent a manic state and the dark to represent a depressive
state along with a sense of mystery. Further, I want to set up a tension between the viewer
and subjects in the paintings; a stage for intimacy and discomfort. I am interested in creating
a familiar or comfortable space that is also unsettling and alien for the viewer. The familiar
(comfortable) elements can be interpreted through the objects in the work that reference the
home (i.e.: couch, rug, mirror), while the surface treatments and manipulations of these
elements can give an unknown feeling. I also see the home as a stage or setting
representation of the human mind. It is the place where I find comfort and familiarity and
yet it can also be the place of self-reflection, confusion, and turmoil.
I continue to research the anxious and existential nature of the human mind to help visualize,
portray, and make tangible the battle within the conscious and subconscious mind. And in
a world that focuses on satisfying the more primitive and chaotic nature of the mind, where
does the silver lining hide? "
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