Arghavan Khosravi

Arghavan Khosravi (b. 1984, Shahr-e Kord, Iran), lives and works in Stamford, Connecticut.

Khosravi’s studio practice mobilizes visual art as a vehicle for cultural transformation. She investigate the aesthetics of ancient Persian miniature paintings, which were originally used to illustrate folkloric texts. Typically, the only women they portray have a subservient or secondary role, lacking agency and social significance. Khosravi’s paintings take a conscious look at how the value system transmitted by that iconography continues to shape Iranian gender politics today. The most noticeable visual characteristic of Khosravi’s paintings is their multi-dimensionality. Constructed from a complex scaffolding of cut and painted wooden panels, they offer a constantly shifting perceptual experience. Visual motifs such as black plumes, rockets, and cages reference corrupted economic and political systems, while female bodies are often depicted as being shackled or with their mouths sewn shut.

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Arghavan Khosravi earned an M.F.A in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design after completing the studio art program at Brandeis University. Khosravi previously earned a B.F.A in Graphic Design from Tehran Azad University and an M.F.A in Illustration from the University of Tehran. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions at Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; Koenig Gallery, Berlin, DE; Stems Gallery, Brussels, BE; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL; Carl Kostyal, London, UK; M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY; among others. Recent group exhibitions include Uncombed, Unforeseen, Unconstrained, an official collateral exhibition of the 59th Venice Biennale; as well as exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, CN; Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, CN; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL; Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI; and Provincetown Art Association and Museum, MA; among others. Khosravi’s work is in the collections of the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA; The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum; Philadelphia, PA; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI; and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, R, among others. Residencies include The Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; The Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; the Studios at MassMoCA, North Adams, MA; Monson Arts, Monson, ME; and Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, NY.

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Recently, Arghavan Khosravi received the 2023 Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Award by The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA. She is a 2019 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters & Sculptors Grant and a 2017 recipient of the Walter Feldman Fellowship.