Shadia Nilforoush is an Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist specializing in video and performance. Her work focuses on reconciling and re-contextualizing divergent identities, drawing from historical and personal narratives to explore themes of women’s work, spirituality, and the complexities of holding conflicting truths. She has received the Crandall-Cordero Fellowship, the Barbara Bullitt Christian Memorial Award, and was a semi-finalist for the US Fulbright Fellowship in 2020. Shadia's work has been exhibited nationally, including in New York, Hartford, Boston, and New Orleans. She holds a BFA from the Hite Art Institute at the University of Louisville and an MFA from the University of Connecticut. Currently based in Louisville, KY.
Photo by Haley Comstock
Statement:
I excavate my personal history and family archives as source material to reconcile evolving identities and reinterpret inherited beliefs. Through the lens of intersectionality, my work examines the formation and performance of identities influenced by multiculturalism, religion and spirituality, socioeconomic status, geography, gender, sexuality, and the residue of trauma. In my art practice, I meditate on the visceral echo of the Islamic call to prayer. I peel oranges like flesh, drip coffee and black tea like cultural DNA, and layer myself beneath the eye-shaped protection of the Nazar amulet. I employ language, text, symbolism, and objects to trace the names I call home. I am driven by the desire for amalgamation rather than bifurcation.