Iranian Artist Arghavan Khosravi on Studying Art in the U.S., and Why She Paints Preoccupied Women
Khosravi recently debuted her first solo show at Rachel Uffner gallery.
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| Arghavan Khosravi, "On Being a Woman" (2021). Photo courtesy Rachel Uffner Gallery and Artnet News. |
by Noor Brara, Artnet News
The U.S.-based Iranian painter Arghavan Khosravi’s sculptural, multi-paneled paintings capture the claustrophobia and disorientation of being split between worlds. In her critically acclaimed recent show, “In Between Places” at New York’s Rachel Uffner gallery—which was extended past its original end date several times, and finally closed in mid-June—women assume agency as they move through their daily lives, all the while preoccupied with looming concerns, represented by depictions such as a ball and chain, puppet strings, prayer rugs and other religious objects that seem to hang, quite literally, over their heads.
Each work is, Khosravi said, a visual representation of how she feels as an Iranian woman artist living in the U.S. who worries for her family, friends, and women more generally back home.
Khosravi sat down with Artnet News to discuss her incredibly successful exhibition, how she came to be a painter, and much more.
To start, I would love to know about your background. Where did you grow up? And when did you first have an inkling that art would be something you’d want to pursue?
I was born in Iran and I spent almost my whole life there. I grew up in Tehran. I think most kids are inclined toward art, to drawing and things like that. My parents were very supportive of me, in part because my father is an architect, so he already had that artistic gene. But in Iran, we need to decide at an early age what our majors will be, in high school. I thought my future career should be something more practical and art could be something beside it. I decided to study mathematics.
