Roya Akhavan

Roya Akhavan was born in Tehran, Iran. The artist’s work has been on view at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City in the 2009 show Iran Inside Out. Her work was also included in East West Dialogues: Mysticism, Satire and the Legendary Past at Leila Heller Gallery, which was centered around the works of contemporary Iranian artists. Akhavan’s work has been exhibited in Iran, Europe, and the United States.

Through repetition, the transformation of images into patterns can allow a passage from the factual to the figurative, from the visual to the conceptual. While a single image cannot always escape the confines of its literal meaning, reiteration can awaken a hidden multiplicity of meaning that spills beyond the boundaries of representation. As the pattern multiplies through the painting, the shape, cleansed of its denotation, becomes free to express something else entirely.