Exhibitions 2025: Azita Moradkhani: Pink in Ashes

January 25 —February 25, 2025

Reception: Thursday, February 20, 5—7 PM
Lecture: Body Image & Power, February 20, CVPA 153 at 3:30 PM

UMass Dartmouth CVPA Campus Gallery is pleased to present "Pink in Ashes," a solo exhibition by an Iranian/American artist Azita Moradkhani, from January 25  through February 25, 2025. The opening reception at CVPA Campus Gallery is planned for Thursday, February 20, 5—7 PM at CVPA Campus Gallery at 285 Old Westport Road in Dartmouth, MA 02747. Light refreshments will be served. (Please use parking lot 5 or 14 and 18 and walk to the CVPA building from there. The gallery is on the first floor.)

Additionally, there will be an artist lecture presented in collaboration with the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality, titled “Body Image & Power” on February 20, at CVPA Rm 153 at 3:30 pm across the hall from the gallery.

All events are free and open to the public.

Pink in Ashes presents a series of delicately rendered drawings as well as prints on garments and sculptural objects. In her statement, the artist notes that her work “has focused on the female body and its vulnerability to various societal structures. It examines the experience of finding oneself insecure in one’s own body. In my drawings, the incorporation of unexpected images within intimate apparel intends to bring humor, surprise, and a shock of recognition. Layers of hazy images reveal stories, with the hope of leaving a mark on the audience. Two worlds–birthplace and adopted home–live alongside each other in my work, joining intimately at a single point.”

Azita Moradkhani draws intimate lingerie, negligees, exploring the contrast between masculine and feminine, power and vulnerability, often including imagery from historical or current photographs from Iran. In the drawing Necklace (2023, 40x26 inches), she incorporates an image of a young woman in a gas mask holding a protest sign that says “until the last breath, woman, life, freedom” which a male figure is wearing as a pendant, referring to the poisoning attacks in many female schools in Iran after November 2022.

Her sculptural work presents similarly delicate detailed images painted on body casts of the artist, using traditional floral patterns as “tattoos of memory and history” in these intimate pieces. Additionally, there are prints directly on garments exhibited in the gallery, creating a link between the art, fashion, and intimacy. 

Dr. Juli Parker, Director of the Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality, notes: “we want to support artists and events that challenge the euro-centric and sexist portrayals of women in society, particularly the ways in which women’s bodies have been constructed under the male gaze.  Azita’s work flips that gaze and asks the viewers to explore the boundaries of censorship and violence.”

Viera Levitt, Gallery Director and Exhibition Curator says that she is “thrilled to have this exhibition available for our community. Azita’s work examines the power structures, censorship, human exploitation - in the most delicate and elegant way, with soft colors and thoughtful wit which makes them even more powerful”.

Azita Moradkhani was born in Tehran where she was exposed to Persian art and culture, as well as Iranian politics, and that double exposure increased her sensitivity to the dynamics of vulnerability and violence that she now explores in her art-making. She received her BFA from Tehran University of Art (2009), and both her MA in Art Education (2013) and her MFA in drawing, painting and sculpture (2015) from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University.

Moradkhani's work in drawing and sculpture has focused on the female body and its vulnerability to different social norms. She was a recipient of both the Young Masters Art Prize and the Young Masters Emerging Woman Art Prize in London in 2017. She received the Saint Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artists Grant that same year. The Financial Times (London) reviewed her series of drawings “Victorious Secrets” and The Boston Globe (MA) published reviews of her collaborative performance piece “Irezumi,” and her curated exhibition “Echo” over the past few years.

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK), Newport Art Museum (RI, USA), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Yinchuan, China). She has also been a visiting artist/lecturer at universities such as Davidson College (NC), Lesley University (MA), and the Parsons School of Design (NY), as well as a panelist at Harvard University, Southern New Hampshire University, and MIT. She is currently teaching at Parsons School of Design (NY) and Rhode Island School of Design (RI). She has been granted numerous residencies, including Yaddo, Virginia Center For the Creative Arts (VCCA), the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Silver Art Projects, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), and International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP).

Azita Moradkhani: Pink in Ashes

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