Metaphors and poetic innuendoes are essential tools of communication in the culture where I grew up. I find the complexity of this language and its layered nature perceptually fascinating. The use of indirect references and hidden meanings in Iran is not only based on specific religious and cultural values, it is also a form of retaliations against a history of artistic, social and political censorship. The highly stylized verbal and visual language of my past informs my sense of expression and identity today. As I find this influence binding at times and liberating at others, I am compelled to question ideologies on which it is based.

Termeh Dimi Yeghiazarian, born in Iran, received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998. She has exhibited in California and in several national and international shows. Most recently, she participated in Mirror of the Invisible exhibition at Robert Fullerton Museum in San Bernardino, California. Termeh is a multi-disciplinary artist and a founding member of Golden Thread Productions, a theatre group that presents works about the Middle East in their Annual Festival of Short Plays in San Francisco.