Exhibitions
NAZANIN MOGHBELI: ENDLESS OCEAN
Zeitgeist Gallery / 516 Hagan St., #100 June 7 - 28th
Nazanin Moghbeli
I use traditional Iranian calligraphy tools to create abstract drawings, a transformation that mirrors my internal dissonance as dual citizen of enemy nations. My work references a deep respect for Iranian art, but its abstract nature rejects the limitations of tradition. My drawings are made with traditional Iranian bamboo “ghalams”, or quills and I borrow carefully studied techniques from Iranian calligraphy to create abstract work. Rather than using these techniques as they were originally used, to create religious objects, I explore the secular meaning of line in and of itself.
The works in this show are based on a poem written in 1177 CE by the Persian poet Farid al-Din Attar. In this particular moment in history, with tensions high in the middle east and in our own country, this poem asks us to consider subtlety, non-duality, compassion, and openness to mystery. It questions the duality of the sacred and the secular, self and other.
How could I have known this endless sea would be like this—
its vapor rising to the sky, its foam resting on the earth?
The shore of the sea is all unbelief, but the sea itself is full of faith—
yet the pearl of the sea lies beyond both belief and disbelief.
If you possess both the pearl and the sea, you will have them both—
yet neither will truly be yours.
Bio:
Nazanin Moghbeli was born in 1974 in Baltimore, into an Iranian family. When she was 3, her family moved back to Iran, where she lived through the Iran/Iraq war, deposing of the Shah, and the Islamic revolution. These events deeply influenced her evolution as an artist. While living in Iran, Nazanin studied Persian calligraphy, miniature painting, and music. As an adult, she continued her study of Iranian music with prominent masters of Persian traditional music, including Hossein Omoumi, and developed a deep appreciation for the intricate dastgah system of music.
She moved to the United States with her family in 1983, where she pursued dual art and biology degrees at Swarthmore college. Her post-graduate training was at the Maryland Institute of Art and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Public health.
Nazanin creates work at the intersections of seemingly disparate disciplines: drawing, poetry, music, and medicine. Her work is preoccupied with her dual identities as an Iranian and American, artist and physician. It explores the nostalgia, familiar to immigrants from war-torn and post-revolution countries, for a place and time that no longer exists. As Iran struggles to find its role in a rapidly changing Middle East, Nazanin explores her experience as an immigrant and woman of color, to find her place in American culture.
Image: Nazanin Moghbeli, Endless, 28 x 23 inches, Ink, charcoal, graphite on paper, 2025
