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After interviewing Shahrzad Taavoni I was inspired. I noticed that I looked at things in a different way. Especially when considering the my relationship to others. I felt I understood what she expresses, how she feels when she seen others work, and how she sees her own art today.
Eric Greene: Please give me a brief bio, where you are from, and how you started in this field?
Shahrzad Taavoni: I was born in Iran and immigrated to the US when I was 7 years old. From an early childhood I loved to draw and create architecture with sheet and sticks, tables and chairs. It was at this point in my life that it became very clear that I had a talent in art. I and everyone else could tell this because of the quality of art that I was producing. I have been aggressively focusing on my art in the past 4 years after I received my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I received my Bachelors in Psychology, from the University of Maryland College Park and my Masters degree in Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine from Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Los Angeles, California. Pulling from these disciplines, I have used many themes from microbiology and cell anatomy in my artwork. I also incorporate repetitive visual themes from nature such as the curvy lines, twists and turns in plant anatomy. Drawing from my profession as an Acupuncturist, I have also become a healer through my art.
Eric Greene: Do you like to come away from an art experience with something?
Shahrzad Taavoni: I like to come away from an art experience seeing how an artist used different techniques to create a certain affect that I like. Optimally, I would like to come out seeing another artist’s work inspired spiritually like taking a deep breath of air, but that rarely happens given the current movement in art.
Eric Greene: Can you recall any specific works that have given you a significant “take-away?”
Shahrzad Taavoni: The Dale Chilhuly’s exhibition in San Francisco.
Eric Greene: What is your favorite “take-away?”
Shahrzad Taavoni: My favorite take away was when I went to see Dale Chihuly’s exhibition in San Francisco a few years ago. It was a very large collection with several exhibit rooms. It was an inspiring, colorful and intriguing journey through the whirl of colors and shapes. It was truly a breathtaking and a rich experience.
Eric Greene: Who are the most influential artists that you like?
Shahrzad Taavoni: My favorite artist are Dale Chihuly, Monet (although my style is very different than his) and Frank Stella.
Eric Greene: Could you tell me about some of your work?
Shahrzad Taavoni: I use recycled gum ball machines and made lamps and ornamental art from them. I love texture, and working on three dimensional objects. My goal as an artist is to capture the fundamental essence of beauty. The life force that permeates nature runs through its veins. The mystery and at the same time assigned structure in nature that forms repetitive yet aesthetically tranquil visual themes. I try to capture the visual and spiritual intelligence of nature and abstractly put it in my art. In this way, viewers of my art are innately familiar with these energies and calculated forces and therefore soothed when viewing my art. I also aim to capture the elegance, intense detail and sophisticated forms in nature. For example, my art shows fractals such as the twists and turns in a tree bark that also show the same detailed structuring in its leaves. It represents timeless shapes that equate in the microcosm and macrocosm such as how a molecule can look so similar to the solar system. Furthermore, color is absolutely essential in my art. I use very bold and vibrant colors to invoke joy, passion and a strong sense of living presence. My color choices and placements of colors are very unconventional and original. When all is said and done, the wisdom of innate aestheticism is the fundamental driving force and purpose of my art.
Eric Greene: What inspires you to keep going, and how do you keep yourself motivated?
Shahrzad Taavoni: I keep myself motivated by Nature, which is a major influence in my drive to make art. When I spend time in nature studying its beauty and taking in all of the invisible forces surrounding it, it truly inspires me to either make visual art or make art through words with my poetry. I find that when I start painting, I actually receive more inspiration. The more I paint, the more I want to paint and the more ideas I get. Sometimes I can get more than one hundred ideas in one day. Of course it is impossible to commit to materializing all of them so I choose my favorites and move from there. It is all a very organic process, and there is a real flow like spontaneously making music that is inspired from previous music and moving forward with that. When I am inspired to paint, it is like I am about to give birth to an idea, a force that must reveal itself to the world. There is a sense of urgency and intensity like following through with a mission that only I have the information to accomplish. It is a very sacred and spiritual experience like materializing a prayer or an invisible force that urges to be materialized and presented to the world to have.
Eric Greene: How do you describe your style?
Shahrzad Taavoni: My style is very organic and influenced by nature. Color is a huge component in my art. I usually use very vibrant colors. However, in general my color choices use a higher percentage of warm colors. I use very unique and unusual color choices side by side. My paintings are a way for me to release my ability to feel intense emotions. Some theme words that capture the essence of my work are: passion, compassion, acute sensitivity and empathy for nature and people, depth and richness of feelings, beauty, poetry and romance. My paintings are more feminine in nature. By that I mean the angles and shapes are round and curved like the feminine form and the overall quality of it being nurturing and motherly. Feminine also in that my work is rawer instinctive emotion based rather than logical. Lines movements and sense of motion is also a theme in my work. I usually use texture with three dimensional paint or wires two dimensional paintings and I love to work with three dimensional forms like the domes I am working on now (the recycled gum balls).
Eric Greene: What is your approach to design?
Shahrzad Taavoni: Basically I have two methods of creating art. The first is that I see a clear vision in my mind’s eye and I paint it into the life. The second is that I have some impressions of what I want to do, like to move forward with that comes along (as I move forward in completing that piece). Sometimes I know some colors that I will use, but I also allow the vision of the painting to be revealed to me like a mystery that is magically unfolding. I am only invited to see the next step because I am the vehicle creating it. And when it is finished, I am just as surprised by the outcome as anyone else seeing it for the first time. The paintings are influence by holy spiritual entities and I am like an oracle that has access to seeing them and materializing them. There are many artists that are influence by negative forces and that are mostly what we are seeing in the current art movement. That and mostly artist that try to mimic other famous artists like art is supposed to be a science with the same results as the prototype brand we put in it. My art is influence by a healing, holy, sacred inspiration that not only bring light and positivity into my own being but into others whom are open to view them with their heart.
Eric Greene: Lastly, any words of advice for aspiring designers/ artists like me?
Shahrzad Taavoni: You have to truly love art. It has to consume you like, you couldn’t live without it. The art business is very tough and it can be a slow process to make it to the top and to support yourself financially with your art. It can be very frustrating so you really have to create art because it is an inner drive that brings you satisfaction. Don’t let earning as much money as you like, in your art influence yourself worth as an artist. We put too much emphasis on money as a society as a measurement of success. If you stick with it and trust that the process will bring you the rewards, you will be building a legacy for yourself. Something the rest of the world can remember you by. Remnants of you and what you stand for will influence the world even after you are gone. The money you make or don’t make in your life time through your art can never do that. So it is important to have a very futuristic look and hold your head up high and make art like it is your mission. Also, sometimes people especially art professionals may bring you down, because they verbally attack your art. Again, believe in yourself and paint from a real and true place within you. Not all art has to be “beautiful” or “correct” in form. If you paint from the deep vortex within you, then it is yours to keep and have no matter how it is critiqued.
I like it .
July 1, 2011 7:58 am