Furman University: Artist-in-Residence Show

The exhibitions are free and open to the public and take place in the Thompson Gallery of the Roe Art Building. Thompson Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Face coverings are required.

Azita Moradkhani

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.

Moradkhani’s work in drawing and sculpture has focused on the female body and its vulnerability to different social norms. It examines the experience of finding oneself insecure in one’s own body. In her drawings, unexpected images incorporated in intimate apparel intend to bring humor, surprise and a shock of recognition. Layers of shadowy images reveal stories, with the hope of leaving a mark on the audience.

Two worlds–birthplace and adopted home–live alongside each other in her work, joining intimately at a single point. Her drawings on paper and casts of her body represent non-Western aesthetics of pleasure and beauty. Working at the intersections of drawing and sculpture, she locates her work in a feminist response to Edward Said’s “Orientalism” – ideas of womanhood in the post-colonial world and the post-revolution generation in Iran intertwine with conflicts at the borders of tradition and (post-)modernity. Meanwhile, influenced by her cultural heritage, she pursues beauty and realism by deploying formality, virtuosity and delicacy in the context of contemporary art.

She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tehran University of Art (2009) and both her Master of Arts in art education (2013) and her Master of Fine Arts in drawing, painting and sculpture (2015) from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts & Tufts University.