Today we’d like to introduce you to Darya Fard.
Hi Darya, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Originally, I am from Iran. I grew up in a creative environment, surrounded by poetry my parents singing, I was painting and creating imaginary characters. Always, I was drawing. I remember music, dance, and my parent’s garden. Many of my earliest memories take place in my father’s garden. This garden was his masterpiece: beautifully designed and perfectly maintained. I spent a lot of time there, sitting outside in the sunshine. It was where I began to learn about the world, nature, animals, and my senses before I knew anything about the outside world and society. This beautiful, isolated space was vastly different from the world happening beyond the garden gates. My parents made this small, safe space for us as a refuge from the political turmoil happening in Iran.
I started my formal career in 2008 when I finished university. I got my MFA and BFA degrees in painting in Iran. After my first MFA in painting, I lived overseas in Sri Lanka, studying the local culture as an artist and photographer.
As a painting student, I discovered printmaking as an art process. I found printmaking to be unpredictable in the same way that life is, demanding patience, careful attention, and most of all, flexibility. Printmaking only allows you to control a small portion of what is happening in the work. I am continuously negotiating with unseen forces that unpredictably affect the process. I found the printmaking master’s program at Georgia State University was a great opportunity to get closer to what I am always imagining for my artistic practice and my life.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Because of the political issues between my country and the USA, it was very difficult to initiate the immigration process. I have always believed in myself and in my future, so I looked for over a year for the right fit for my further education and career. I also spent this time building my resume and immigration package, studying for tests, finding recommendations, and strengthening my application portfolio.
Part of the immigration process is completing an oral interview with an immigration officer from the US Embassy in Turkey. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, I was so nervous. I had a huge, thick portfolio full of my resume, documents, writing sample, everything, even the acceptance e-mails from the MFA programs I applied to. As I was waiting for my turn, I almost walked right by and missed the room where my interview was being held! I was listening to the officer, watching her lips move, handing the paperwork she was requesting, and all the while thinking, “this person has control over my life, my future!” She asked us so many questions for twenty minutes but take forever for us. I saw her, shake her head and my heart dropped, but she handed me a yellow letter!
This means I got approval to continue the visa process. But my husband had not received his! He didn’t get anything for two years (2019-2021). Every month, we waited when we were apart from each other. At the time, the political situation between the US and Iran and neighboring countries was very bad. There was a travel ban. Violence was breaking out. The internet back home went out and I lost communications with my family. I tried e-mailed the US Embassy and eventually US Representatives. So, all while I’m getting used to living in the US, I was without my husband and had so much uncertainty of when I would see him again and while I was homesick…
One of the other challenges in my life was money issue since dolor was extremely expensive in my mother land. Since I started my professional journey in the US and during the first and second years of my MFA program, I had a hard time to afford my materials. But, I focused on my goals and continued making my artworks, my building up my career and solving my problems one by one.
In my first year, the COVID-19 pandemic started. Going through a graduate program during the pandemic has been especially hard. A lot of opportunities have been shut down due to social distancing. This is not the first time I have faced limitations, though. In Iran, there are not so many opportunities for jobs and a better life. So I made what I can with what I had. If this time has taught me anything, it’s to slow down, pay attention to what is important, take care of ourselves and each other. All these things to help adjust to the “new normal”. As soon as I got here [to the US], I started creating connections. It was hard to move my social life to the computer. I became isolated, like so many others. This happened in my first year of being in a new place, with a new culture, a new language.
In my third year of school after all these challenges that I experienced during this short time, the most painful lesson in my life took important place in my whole life. In January 20, 2022, my sister suddenly flew in my mother land, and I could have chance to say good by to my beloved sister. I could not come back to my country because I was not able to leave the US and because of instability of political relationship between Iran and US. This taught me that all those challenges were meaningless… My thesis work has been a direct extension of these hard lessons.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My work is about creating ways to live with these difficulties because the challenges never seem to end, and not just to live but to thrive! I believe the world is capable of immense beauty! My work looks at the beauty of universal connection through drawing objective and non-objective, symbolic mythical forms, using traditional and alternative printmaking techniques to create narrative works that explore cross-cultural, personal ways of connecting to and experiencing the transcendent.
My work is inspired by Persian poetry, meditative and improvised dance, and music. I wonder how humans use these tools to comprehend the divine and experience transcendence. Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi, Rumi, and Attar’s verses in particular, form the basis of my research. Their poems communicate a holistic perception of the world that illuminates my inner world. Starting from my roots in Persian traditions, I am branching out, seeking my place in the universe and looking for enlightenment among other belief systems. My spiritual exploration plays out in my work, as I represent moments of ecstasy, unity, and transcendence through modern printmaking techniques combined with sound and movement.
My thesis show, The Seven Valleys is an installation comprised of screenprint and mix media on plexiglass panel, video, sound, and shadow. These elements are combined to illustrate the experience of psychological flow, involvement in the present moment and attaining to spiritual enlighmtenment by following a path of seven steps to perfection based on The Confrence of the Birds by Attar. The Seven Valleys show illustrates my experience of flow and investigates how humans can experience ecstatic flow in connection with the natural world.
Printmaking is how I connect to the ineffable, the inexplicable. In the process of creating print pieces, I am on a journey, an exploration into my imagination and senses. Printmaking is all about experience, repetition, movement, and connection with the tools. The repetitive mark-making channels my awareness into my senses. I immerse myself into the repeated movements and scratchy sounds of etching a copper plate, the familiar chemical scents of the inks and acids, the feel of damp paper and smooth stone. The immersive sensory experience disconnects me from the material present, my current time and place, the here-and-now; I become completely absorbed in the printmaking process.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Since starting my MFA program at Georgia State University in 2019, I have been working alongside many supportive people with different perspectives like Pamela Longobardi, Craig Drennen, Craig Dongoski, Serena Perrone, and Jeremy Bolen. I also had studio visits with guest artists from different states of the US at GSU. During these three years, it was important to me to find artistic peers who are working with similar themes. I have been experiencing collaborative projects with my peer Lizzy Storm, one of the GSU ‘s DPP program’s candidates to create performative videos. We are performing improvisational dance in my videos.
I have been extremely well supported by professional mentors like GSU‘s Professor Emeritus, Matthew Sugarman in the printmaking program, learning the technique of lithography and other experimental and professional techniques. He is also expert in creating silkscreen techniques in gigantic scales that ended up helping and working on my big scale plexiglass in thesis project. Professor Sugarman generosity pushed me to take huge steps in my body of work and helped me be more confident about my future career as an international artist. My students have helped me stay motivated and inspired with their fresh perspectives on art and life. I am very lucky to be surrounded by such supportive and knowledgeable artists and mentors.
Pricing:
- $2000
Contact Info:
- Email: info@daryafardstudio.com
- Website: daryafardstudio.com
- Instagram: daryafardstudio
- Facebook: Darya Fard
- Youtube: Darya Fard
Image Credits:
Matthew Sugarman and Darya Fard 1. Seven Valley 1 2. Seven Valley 2 3. The Hazy nebula accompanies a poplar leaf to the seventh heaven” collection 4. Seven valley 3 5. Flow
