Wk10 – Artist Conversation – Mahsa Soroudi

Exhibition Information
Artists: Mahsa Soroudi
Exhibition: Nature’s Cadence, 7500 Miles
Media: Photography, Nature, Painting
Website: https://www.mahsasoroudi.com/

About the Artist
Mahsa Soroudi was born in Tehran in 1981, a daughter of a painter. She would go on to get her BFA in Visual Communication at the Azad Art and Architecture University in Tehran in 2006. Afterwards, she got married and immediately moved to Southern California. Soroudi is an artist that is passionate about revealing qualities of women that may be disregarded in favor of more stereotypical views. As such, her art is inspired by her own personal struggles in her move to the United States as well as overcoming the stereotypical view of Iranian women as passive victims.

Formal Analysis
In her first exhibition, Nature’s Cadence, Soroudi uses succulents as her medium. Soroudi’s succulents varied in size, color, shape, and structure. She had succulents that were fully grown and thriving as well as succulents that are just beginning to bud. Most interestingly however is a succulent she thought had failed yet began to recover and grow back stronger.

Her other exhibition, 7500 miles, is a collection of paintings that show things related to Iranian women and their lifestyles. Most of the paintings are colorful and portray Iranian women in a myriad of art styles. The art styles for some paintings might be realistic but others are also abstract and surreal. Moreover, the subject for the paintings are not just limited to Iranian women but might be something related to them such as a dress or a vanity.

Content Analysis
Nature’s Cadence is meant to illustrate Soroudi’s experience with leaving her home in Iran to move to Southern California. After moving, Soroudi says she felt a sort of disconnect between herself and her new home in Southern California. She felt gloomy and struggled to adapt to her new home. However, Soroudi uses succulents to show how she was able to use hard work and patience to overcome a hostile and unfamiliar environment. Just like her plants, she was able to put in the effort to adapt and grow in her new home in California.

7500 Miles is Soroudi’s other exhibition where she tries to overcome the overplayed stereotype of Iranian women being passive victims of oppression. According to Soroudi, a lot of Iranian artists pander to Western stereotypes by painting a picture of Iranian women dealing with hijab or oppression in their culture. However, she wants to show everyone that there is so much more to Iranian women than just being victims. Thus, 7500 Miles is her way of representing other aspects of the life of an Iranian women by painting a picture of their everyday, ordinary lives.

Synthesis
Soroudi’s art really made me think about how I viewed Iranian women. I’ve realized that my first thought of an Iranian woman was one that struggled to deal with hijab and other patriarchal issues. 7500 Miles has challenged this view and I will now think of Iranian women as ordinary people instead of victims, just like any other person. Moreover, Nature’s Cadence really let me understand her hardship in leaving her home to move to an unfamiliar environment. Being a child of immigrants, I know how hard it is to adapt to a new country and the challenges that come with it. I believe that her use of succulents to portray this struggle was excellent as it shows that hardship can be overcome through hard work, patience, and care.