Rooted in my personal interpretation of the philosophy of Islamic mysticism manifested in art and architecture, my work investigates issues of loss, displacement, memory and hybridity. By weaving metaphors throughout the material substance of the work, I create multi-layered archives of personal (and collective) experience to blur the boundaries of time and place. My work stands witness to the interplay of the political and the religious with the personal and the spiritual and explores the complexities of the forces that shape (and limit) the forms of expression in the Iranian culture.

Taraneh Hemami is an Iranian born artist working in the Bay Area, California. She received her MFA in Painting with high distinction from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1991. Since then she has been teaching and exhibiting her work extensively. She has been the recipient of many grants and residencies, including the Creative Work Fund, in 2000, for her project Reflections and Remembrances, for which she will be collecting personal stories of Iranian immigrants to be incorporated in a major installation piece.