Shirazeh Houshiary b. 1955

Artist Biography

Shirazeh Houshiary (b. 1955, Shiraz, Iran, based in London, United Kingdom) draws on wide-ranging sources including physics, language, Renaissance painting and spirituality to create works that explore an inner reality. Although early works place her within the New British Sculpture movement of the 1980s, the artist’s practice has expanded since the early 1990s to encompass paintings, installations and multimedia forms. These works further her study of what binds humanity—the search for the self and its place in an unstable, unraveling world.

The human breath, which Houshiary considers to be the essence of our existence, is a recurring motif that she employs to invite contemplation. In many of her paintings, breath appears as an atmospheric impression that ripples, quivers and dissolves across the canvas—formed by meticulously-repeated minuscule writings of ‘I am’ and ‘I am not’. Breath (2003), which marked Houshiary’s entry into the digital realm, takes its starting point from the religious chants of four different traditions. The vocalisation of these chants are layered to form the audio component of the work, while animated into videos of abstract, undulating mists.This immerses viewers into a rhythm that can be both seen and heard.

Houshiary obtained her BFA from the Chelsea School of Art, London in 1979. Her work can be found in major collections including the Berardo Museum Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Lisbon; British Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Prato; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate, London.

Notable recent exhibitions include Mysterious Ways (2024), The Glucksman, Cork; Rhizome (2023), Long Museum, Shanghai; Ink Dreams (2021), Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Abstraction and Calligraphy (2021), Louvre Abu Dhabi; Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet (2021), Asia Society Museum, New York; Artists and the Rothko Chapel (2021), The Moody Center for the Arts, Houston; and Epic Iran (2021), Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including Fundamentals (2014), 14th Venice Architecture Biennale; 1st International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2014), Cartagena de Indias; The Best of Times, The Worst of Times (2012), 1st Kyiv Biennale; Common Ground (2012), 13th Venice Architecture Biennale; Cardinal Points of Art (1993), 45th Venice Biennale; and Art as Art (1982), 40th Venice Biennale.

Houshiary had her residency at the STPI Workshop in 2015, culminating in the exhibition The River Is Within Us (2016).