Shiraz Fazli
Editions: 6, 7
PAST WORK
melted pot, or life in a climate-altered world, 2024
Textiles, acrylic, and found objects
38.25” x 16”
PRICE: $800
ARTIST STATEMENT
"Shiraz Fazli (b. 1997) is a mixed media artist born and based in Brooklyn, NY. She blends textile scraps with painting and embroidery to create paintings, dolls, and tapestries that represent a perversion of Afghan motifs, language, and traditions. Fazli graduated from Bard College in 2019 and has exhibited in national and international galleries such as Gallerie Eingenheim, ACUD Art House, and ReflectSpace Gallery. In 2023, she exhibited her tapestry تکه تکه تکه می شوم (I break apart) at the Goethe Institute in Exile’s Afghanistan Festival, aligning her work with Afghan artists in diaspora who push the limits of cultural norms and imbue their work with a critique of displacement and foreign intervention. Her work is informed by the cultural history of Afghanistan and the wider region, including folklore, poetry, calligraphy, videos, music, and miniature paintings.”
"In my art, I join together paper, fabric, paint, charcoal, and found objects to create haunting talismans. My work consists of exposed seams, hanging threads, and layers of paint that serve as metaphors for fractured narratives that connect seemingly disparate working-class diasporas with indigenous groups worldwide. I also use distorted Farsi and Arabic words within my work to challenge the calligraphic tradition of beautiful writing that tries, but inevitably falls short of, emulating the divine word of God. Instead, this anti-calligraphy relies on the human hand and its fallibility.
These works show human forms and seem almost celebratory in nature. However, juxtaposed with their uncanny appearance, the works make evident the contradictory nature of capitalism that relies on a network of complicit actors worldwide. Through this dissonance, my art brings to the forefront overlapping absurdity, grotesque, and joy of being part of the working-class and living in diaspora. While I search to make evident the fractured narratives, I also seek to stitch, mend, and repair."
Shamshiruddin, 2024
Plastic, cardboard, fabric, wood
18” x 26” x 10”
PRICE: $800
ARTIST STATEMENT
"Shamshiruddin is a doll crafted from recycled plastic, cardboard, wood, and fabric scraps,
encased in a chiffon skin embroidered with the repeated name of Allah.
The labor of crafting Shamshiruddin is visible through its hanging threads, wrinkles, stitches, and crooked posture. The doll also has no face, giving the impression of anonymity and universality. Its appearance serves as a reflection on the current material realities of ecological disasters and depleted resources, which fuel conflicts worldwide.
Shamshiruddin embodies memorial, prayer, protection, birth, and death. It encapsulates patience
and imperfection, conveying both heaviness and delicacy. The white silk fabric is luminescent and valuable, while the black stitches that cover the doll feel somewhat aggressive. It is the spiritual essence that strengthens resistance in the face of struggle—a contradiction in a world of unraveling contradictions, folding in on itself and looking to the past to navigate the future."
"Shiraz Fazli (b. 1997) is a mixed media artist born and based in Brooklyn, NY. She blends textile scraps with painting and embroidery to create paintings, dolls, and tapestries that represent a perversion of Afghan motifs, language, and traditions. Fazli graduated from Bard College in 2019 and has exhibited in national and international galleries such as Gallerie Eingenheim, ACUD Art House, and ReflectSpace Gallery. In 2023, she exhibited her tapestry تکه تکه تکه می شوم (I break apart) at the Goethe Institute in Exile’s Afghanistan Festival, aligning her work with Afghan artists in diaspora who push the limits of cultural norms and imbue their work with a critique of displacement and foreign intervention. Her work is informed by the cultural history of Afghanistan and the wider region, including folklore, poetry, calligraphy, videos, music, and miniature paintings.”
"In my art, I join together paper, fabric, paint, charcoal, and found objects to create haunting talismans. My work consists of exposed seams, hanging threads, and layers of paint that serve as metaphors for fractured narratives that connect seemingly disparate working-class diasporas with indigenous groups worldwide. I also use distorted Farsi and Arabic words within my work to challenge the calligraphic tradition of beautiful writing that tries, but inevitably falls short of, emulating the divine word of God. Instead, this anti-calligraphy relies on the human hand and its fallibility.
These works show human forms and seem almost celebratory in nature. However, juxtaposed with their uncanny appearance, the works make evident the contradictory nature of capitalism that relies on a network of complicit actors worldwide. Through this dissonance, my art brings to the forefront overlapping absurdity, grotesque, and joy of being part of the working-class and living in diaspora. While I search to make evident the fractured narratives, I also seek to stitch, mend, and repair."
khesh o qawm (kin), 2021
Acrylic and charcoal on wood panel
10” x 8”
PRICE: $250
ARTIST STATEMENT
"Shiraz Fazli (b. 1997) is a mixed media artist born and based in Brooklyn, NY. She blends textile scraps with painting and embroidery to create paintings, dolls, and tapestries that represent a perversion of Afghan motifs, language, and traditions. Fazli graduated from Bard College in 2019 and has exhibited in national and international galleries such as Gallerie Eingenheim, ACUD Art House, and ReflectSpace Gallery. In 2023, she exhibited her tapestry تکه تکه تکه می شوم (I break apart) at the Goethe Institute in Exile’s Afghanistan Festival, aligning her work with Afghan artists in diaspora who push the limits of cultural norms and imbue their work with a critique of displacement and foreign intervention. Her work is informed by the cultural history of Afghanistan and the wider region, including folklore, poetry, calligraphy, videos, music, and miniature paintings.”
"In my art, I join together paper, fabric, paint, charcoal, and found objects to create haunting talismans. My work consists of exposed seams, hanging threads, and layers of paint that serve as metaphors for fractured narratives that connect seemingly disparate working-class diasporas with indigenous groups worldwide. I also use distorted Farsi and Arabic words within my work to challenge the calligraphic tradition of beautiful writing that tries, but inevitably falls short of, emulating the divine word of God. Instead, this anti-calligraphy relies on the human hand and its fallibility.
These works show human forms and seem almost celebratory in nature. However, juxtaposed with their uncanny appearance, the works make evident the contradictory nature of capitalism that relies on a network of complicit actors worldwide. Through this dissonance, my art brings to the forefront overlapping absurdity, grotesque, and joy of being part of the working-class and living in diaspora. While I search to make evident the fractured narratives, I also seek to stitch, mend, and repair."
Greenwood Cemetery, 2024
Mixed media on paper
21" x 14.75”
PRICE: $715
ARTIST STATEMENT
"Shiraz Fazli (b. 1997) is a mixed media artist born and based in Brooklyn, NY. She blends textile scraps with painting and embroidery to create paintings, dolls, and tapestries that represent a perversion of Afghan motifs, language, and traditions. Fazli graduated from Bard College in 2019 and has exhibited in national and international galleries such as Gallerie Eingenheim, ACUD Art House, and ReflectSpace Gallery. In 2023, she exhibited her tapestry تکه تکه تکه می شوم (I break apart) at the Goethe Institute in Exile’s Afghanistan Festival, aligning her work with Afghan artists in diaspora who push the limits of cultural norms and imbue their work with a critique of displacement and foreign intervention. Her work is informed by the cultural history of Afghanistan and the wider region, including folklore, poetry, calligraphy, videos, music, and miniature paintings.”
"In my art, I join together paper, fabric, paint, charcoal, and found objects to create haunting talismans. My work consists of exposed seams, hanging threads, and layers of paint that serve as metaphors for fractured narratives that connect seemingly disparate working-class diasporas with indigenous groups worldwide. I also use distorted Farsi and Arabic words within my work to challenge the calligraphic tradition of beautiful writing that tries, but inevitably falls short of, emulating the divine word of God. Instead, this anti-calligraphy relies on the human hand and its fallibility.
These works show human forms and seem almost celebratory in nature. However, juxtaposed with their uncanny appearance, the works make evident the contradictory nature of capitalism that relies on a network of complicit actors worldwide. Through this dissonance, my art brings to the forefront overlapping absurdity, grotesque, and joy of being part of the working-class and living in diaspora. While I search to make evident the fractured narratives, I also seek to stitch, mend, and repair."
Insufficient Surplus, 2023
Acrylic, canvas, wood, hair
11" x 8”
PRICE: $450
ARTIST STATEMENT
Shiraz Fazli (b. 1997) is a mixed media artist born and based in Brooklyn, NY. She blends textile scraps with painting and embroidery to create paintings, dolls, and tapestries that represent a perversion of Afghan motifs, language, and traditions. Fazli graduated from Bard College in 2019 and has exhibited in national and international galleries such as Gallerie Eingenheim, ACUD Art House, and ReflectSpace Gallery. In 2023, she exhibited her tapestry تکه تکه تکه می شوم (I break apart) at the Goethe Institute in Exile’s Afghanistan Festival, aligning her work with Afghan artists in diaspora who push the limits of cultural norms and imbue their work with a critique of displacement and foreign intervention. Her work is informed by the cultural history of Afghanistan and the wider region, including folklore, poetry, calligraphy, videos, music, and miniature paintings.
In her art, manipulated and collaged fabric scraps are joined together with a brute and raw stitchwork to create haunting talismans. Exposed seams, hanging threads, and energetic layers of paint are found throughout her work to serve as metaphors for the active conflicts and the fractured narratives that connect seemingly disparate diaspora and indigenous groups. These colorful assemblages of textiles and found objects take on a human form and seem almost celebratory in nature. However, juxtaposed with their uncanny appearance, the works make evident the contradictory nature of imperialism that relies on a network of complicit actors worldwide. Through this dissonance, her art brings to the forefront the line between absurdity and grotesque residing in the imperial core. Fabric and threads, as a material, are also able to convey the idea of intertwining. While she searches to make evident the fractured narratives, she also seeks to stitch, mend, and repair.