Name: Raheleh Bagheri
DOB: July 1976
Place of Birth: Tehran, Iran
Occupation: Artist, Squash Coach & Referee
An Iranian born artist now living in Columbus, Ohio, she attended the Faculty of Arts at the University of Tehran, and afterward studied under the mentorship of prominent Iranian painter Daruish Hosseini. She later began sculpting under the tutelage of eminent sculptor Behrooz Daresh.
“I am an expressive person. I enjoy watching people, in public spaces, at coffee shops, pools, beaches, painting their bodies, their emotions, capturing the other side of them. Not the realistic things everyone can see, but the hidden expressivity.”
“I like to make my viewers think. When they pass a piece at an exhibition they have to stop and wonder. I like to show non-artists the things they can’t see. Show them a different world. It’s sometimes hidden, and sometimes not real at all, but in my imagination, a fiction that the person inspires.”
Raheleh’s work concentrates on abstractions of the human form and the emotional expressivity emanating from it, something not found elsewhere in nature. Each piece shows an alternate view of the subject, displaying a distinct beauty otherwise unseen. One cannot pass Raheleh’s pieces without stopping, and getting washed over by its startlingly unique perspective.
“For sculpting, I started because the canvas is not enough to show my emotion and excitement. I needed to make it in three-dimensional to get enough expression. To make the creatures I invented, and introduce them to the people.
I enjoy carving. When there’s a piece of wood or metal, and you can bring out art out of nothing — you give a little of your soul to these things. They have a part of you in them.”
Since moving to the U.S., Raheleh has begun collaborating with an Iranian-American photographer, Arezoo Bijani, on a collection of works emanating from their experiences as artists in Iran, revealing the struggles they passed through in their home country, but also the distinct non-Western vantage point it gives them on male-female asymmetries even in the West.
Prints:
