Biography

Mobina is an Iranian artist currently living and working in San Francisco. She grew up in Iran where she pursued a variety of her interests in art by completing a B.A. in Theatre at Fine Art Tehran University, and an M.A. in Art and Design at Art University Tehran; before moving to London where she awarded a Ph.D. in Creativity at City University London. 

Mobina’s artworks are deeply rooted in traditional calligraphy and poetry. Her pieces are often created in collaboration with international poets and photographers. Her works blend calligraphy, poetry, and photography. These richly emotive and layered compositions explore connections between forms of body and words of poetry.

 My early love of literature and poetry in Iran evolved into fascination with the social uses of language through the lens of all the limits and restrictions that women face, across the world, from past to the present. I contemplate issues of gender, the formation and perception of identity based on national or cultural preconception.

I explore, with the viewer, our desires for beauty, poetics and seduction. These richly emotive and layered compositions explore my cross-cultural identity as a female immigrant moving from Iran to live first in the UK, and now the USA. As a young woman coming from Iran to the West, I experienced many different pressures, cultural expectations and demands for conformity of both Eastern and more insidiously, Western societies.

My work is strongly influenced by the poetic work of Forough Farrokhzad. I use poetry to portray “My body My right” by using powerful photos of myself and other women and veil them over and over with handwritten calligraphic poems. This process creates mysterious, transcendent layers - a medium of expression full of words, sensuality and layers of meaning related to women’s identity.

My work is expressed with classic calligraphic writing, articulating new conceptual poetry layered over images of the female body - the subject of censorship by religion, by traditional societies and even by Western communities. I use what I call ”Stifled words” referring to female suppression. The calligraphy is subtly changed to be recognisable, but often not directly readable in Farsi. My use of female poets and bodies calls into question boundaries and taboo concepts. 

My works are forbidden in my country of origin and also not really accepted to show in many galleries in the USA. Yet, I still try to push the boundaries and create a new consciousness of the body.

EDUCATION

2016 PhD, City University London

2008 MA, Tehran Art University 

2005 BA, Tehran Art University

EXHIBITIONS

2020 Poetic Abstraction, Madrigal gallery, Sausalito, San Francisco, USA

2019 Timeless Themes of the Persian Perspective, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, USA

2019 Her Banned Voice, Brava Theatre, San Francisco, USA

2019 Textures & Patterns, SF women gallery, San Francisco

2019 ArtSpan Auction, SOMArt, San Francisco, USA

2018 Synesthesia, Minnesota Street Projects, San Francisco, USA

2018 Art and Design collaboration, THE SPACE by ADVOCARTSY, Los Angeles, USA

2018 Body and Art, SOMArt, San Francisco, USA

2018 Pars Equality Live Auction, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, USA

2018 Omid Foundation Live Auction, San Francisco, USA

2018 Have Your Heard Us Yet? AbramsClaghorn Gallery, Albany, USA

2018 The only Truth is Music, Mauro Ffortissimo Studio, Half Moon Bay, USA 

2017 The Mystery of Words and Lines, Live Worm gallery, San Francisco, USA

2017 Nowrouz, City Hall, San Francisco, USA

2017 Pars Equality Live Auction, San Francisco, USA

2016 Words of love, Prince of Wales studio, London, UK

2016 Orangery and poems, Hay Hill, London, UK

AWARDS

2019 Juror’s choice, SF Women Artists, San Francisco, USA

2013 Creativity Awards, Emotional Design, Krakow, Poland

2011 PhD Scholarship in Creativity, City University London, London, UK

I invite you to soften the gaze, quiet the mind, allows yourself to enter a receptive state and let these words speak directly to your subconscious. These poems are not written to be read, they are here to be felt. Feel the rhythm, repetition, emptiness, fullness and the visual melodies of music. This is not a normal poetry book that you can open and read. In fact, the mystery of the words is part of the whole experience. These poems are a channel to infinity.