Azadeh Gholizadeh is a Chicago-based artist and educator. Born in Tehran, she received her MA in architecture from Iran University of Science and Technology and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Solo exhibitions include Dawn to Dusk, which currently is on view at Goldfinch Gallery in Chicago. Her work has been featured in the December 2021 edition of Zwirner’s Platform Initiative.

Azadeh’s work explores the body, landscape, and the fragmentation of memory through an examination of her own emotional connection to a sense of belonging. She is interested in thinking about the relationship of landscape to memory in a manner described by Simon Schama as “a way of looking; of rediscovering what we already have … instead of being yet another explanation of what we have lost, it is an exploration of what we may find.”

“In her particular use of abstraction and color throughout mediums, Azadeh Gholizadeh’s work conveys a unique sense of togetherness in loneliness. While she considers her process a way to find balance in chaos, her work also dares to break the traditions of the landscape shape and the frame itself, inviting viewers to reconsider their perspective,” Juror Solana Chehtman shared.

Fellow Juror Robyn Farrell also added about Gholizadeh: “[her] work finds freedom through rigidity in a methodic, yet meditative process that layers memory, loss, and place. Her abstracted tapestries redefine the traditions of her chosen medium as she utilizes formal elements of color, composition, and scale to explore nostalgia and belonging through a host of sensorial considerations and personal experience.”