Azadeh Sahraeian

About the Artist

Azadeh Sahraeian was born in Omidiyeh, Iran in 1979. She received her M.A. in architecture from Azad university of Shiraz and practiced at architectural firms for several years before starting her journey as an artist in 2012 by creating a series of intricate, detail oriented pen drawings on paper. Her artworks which remains strongly rooted in design, focuses on the relationship between formation, growth and time. Being influenced by the architect and philosopher, Christopher Alexander, she approaches design as the art of creating living entities in different disciplines. Prior to their immigrating to the United States in 2013, Azadeh and her husband Arash were working together to define a design methodology inspired by natural processes and in a mutual relationship with science. Their works and papers have been published in several magazines including IKE conference in Las Vegas and Shiraz contemporary architects annual book. Azadeh and her husband moved to the United States in 2013 and they are living in North Bethesda, Maryland. Her artworks have been exhibited in different group shows in the United States including 2018 Abstract National exhibition at Mark arts, 2018 Emerging artists group show at Limner gallery and 2017 group show at ACDC.

Artist's Statement

I create abstract pen drawings which are inspired by growth processes. My drawings are simple lines with complex morphology. Each drawing begins with a single element, a “center”, and continues with duplication process in which strong centers evolve in levels of scale, pronounced boundaries and alternative repetition. Emerging new centers continue till the whole drawing evolves. In this process there is a reciprocal insight between centers and the whole; as one finds ways to better understand the centers, the whole becomes better defined. Although the liveliness of each drawing increases by density and intensity of the centers but its simplicity creates a feeling of inner calm. The centers are individual entities and may differ in size and shape but they are not separated; they belong together and are connected with a deep interlock. Thus, my meticulous art works come along with a gradual formation in level of details. They are harmonious whole yet developed step-by-step; organic yet abstract; unpredictable yet mathematical; ordered yet chaotic; still yet fluxing. There is a continuous mutation in the process of emerging; an ongoing dialogue between formation and deformation in which my drawings unfold only a spectrum of it. I believe life is liquid; it flows smoothly and continuously in space, like the clouds transforming through the sky, a painting emerging on the canvas, buildings growing in the cities and even the cities themselves; they are all alive. In fact every part of this world has the quality of liveliness which is tangible and can be determined based on its complexity. As an architect and artist I like to create living things; not biologically alive but things that have a perceptible degree of life. Observing natural and man-made patterns and complex systems enable me to define my method in art and design and being influenced by the architect, philosopher and mathematician, Christopher Alexander, I would like to follow the conceptual framework he has established during his career; I ask myself what must be done to create life in this world; whether it is a drawing, a sculpture or a building. From the city of Venice to the Alhambra, a painting by Van Gogh to a symphony by Mozart, from a leaf to a breaking ocean wave, there is an order, common properties and defined creation processes which can be identified, measured and be used in creating living things in this world. I do not see life merely the process of reproducing biological cells and organisms; I rather see it in the order of these natural and artificial structures and to generate my artworks based on their properties and characteristics.