My relationship to art is a spiritual endeavor. It is my key to understanding the fragments that make up identity and the world through abstraction. It took me over ten years to realize that I wanted to dedicate myself to art. Since setting foot in this path, I have been carving out time and space through fellowships and artist’s residencies to make bodies of work, and began to understand my language as an artist. It has been a tumultuous yet fulfilling few years as I am able to follow my passion and work with my hands. More recently I have become fascinated by the word’s power as a container for meaning. My initial investigations into text were of the poetry of Hafez and Rumi. However, my recent works have become progressively autobiographical. As an Iranian American growing up in the post 1979 Iran, I have experienced separation and longing in its different manifestations. Through my art, I am compelled to formally investigate, express, and decode the ways in which these events have marked me.