- When I was fifteen I gifted my parents a painting depicting a vase of flower, which they proudly hung on their Livingroom wall. I left my homeland of Iran in 1979 and soon after my parents moved to a farmhouse and hung my art on the walls of that house. It has been 47 years since I left and being in exile. My parents are now gone, since their home has been vandalized and fallen into ruins,  the land has been illegally seized by the Islamic Regime, and I have not seen my homeland for nearly five decades. However, a few years ago I discovered that against all odds my painting is still hanging on the walls of their abandoned farmhouse.

The piece, “untitled”, depicts my rediscovered painting of flowers as it hangs in its current state, still clinging onto the ruins of my parents' lost home locked behind iron gates and envisions my own dreamlike return to Iran.

This is the first work in an upcoming series of five paintings in progress which will explore the experience of exile, my longing for a lost self, and the enduring human desire for freedom.

Untitled:  27X36,  acrylics on linen 

(first piece as part of an In Exile series of five paintings and poems in progress)