Shiva Aliabadi is an Iranian-American artist living in Phoenix, AZ. Aliabadi’swork has recently been exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum in Another Thing Coming, the Yokohama Triennial in Japan, and Tip the Wink at the Institute of Jamais Vu, London, England. Her work is included in New American Paintings, issues #115 and #117, and Christopher Knight’s article in the L.A Times, “Object Lessons at Torrance Art Museum’s ‘Another Thing Coming’.” Upcoming exhibits include Doppelgänger, featuring German and LA-based artists, at the Torrance Art Museum and Geometry in the Expanded Field, in Fine Arts Complex 1101, Tempe, Arizona.

Much of Aliabadi's work deals with capturing traces and histories of people, moments, and places. She attempts to create a record of instances in the face of our existential reality that things always change, people are not permanent in our lives, and we are ephemeral beings. These records are not always permanent themselves, often being made out of non-archival materials. No matter what the medium, Aliabadi wants to talk about the moments in our lives that can seem insignificant; yet, it is all of those little moments that make up the most of our histories. Mundane conversations, everyday objects, interactions with strangers, process time in our studios-- all comprise seemingly insignificant moments that are actually the meat of our life and just as significant as the larger, flashier instances we tend to notice and celebrate. As an immigrant from Iran, and having moved so much in her life from country to country and US state to state, she is very sensitive to losing people and places and tries to make them important, because loss is very real, painful, and oftentimes unfair. How do you hold on through all these shifts and how do you make them all seem important in the end? 




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