A work of art often mirrors one's life experiences - this is true for the viewer as well as the artist. Shirin Golestaneh's work represents the journey from within - the world of imaginary landscapes, dreams and places we know inside ourselves. She..
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A work of art often mirrors one's life experiences - this is true for the viewer as well as the artist. Shirin Golestaneh's work represents the journey from within - the world of imaginary landscapes, dreams and places we know inside ourselves. She incorporates moons, suns, brooks, mountains and seas working with layers of transparencies to create a mosaic of colors revealing images from underneath. Someone looking at her work may recognize objects not because they have been there physically but perhaps in another dimension. This is the common language or journey shared by the viewer and the artist that brings them together.'Shirin has revealed herself in a work that shows a controlled, serenely conscious journey to those childhood places, to the enchanted landscapes of timeless fables, which tell the origins of things. I don't mean to suggest the artist gets carried away by nostalgia; on the contrary, the skillful lucidity of her work says quite another thing. In Shirin's work this often occurs with a zesty, thick layering of brilliant impasto, or with flattened mottles that become flowers or waves, a red sky sunset, or the moon, a cloud, a furrow in a field; often there is an illumination of flimsy lights, created by the transparency of diluted color, liquid nuances, the magical evocation of nights full of dreams'. - Ennio Pouchard.The vitality and creativity shown in Shirin's work derives from her multi-cultural background, extensive travels and education in art. Shirin was born in Boston in 1958 to an American mother, also an artist and a Persian father. In 1960 her father decided to move the family to Iran and use his expertise in his homeland. Shirin lived there for fourteen years spending some years around the Persian Gulf and later on in Tehran where she grew up.In 1975 her family moved briey to Switzerland and in 1976 she went on to the United States to complete her university education with The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Upon completion of her Bachelors degree in the United States, she decided to move back to Europe and was accepted at an an American master's program in Florence studying with Master etcher Swietlan Kraczyna and Isa Petrozzani, a protg of Primo Conti, and subsequently received two Master's degrees in 1985.Her works have been shown in numerous group shows as well as solo exhibits and may be found in numerous private collections worldwide. less
