Yasaman Khaleghi (born in 1997, Tehran, Iran) is a graduate of painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran. Her activity in 2020, after completing her bachelor’s degree and setting up a personal studio, became significantly more serious, and since then she has always been busy discovering and exploring the possibilities that subjects and materials offer her. The main drive for creating an image is the narrative of emotions that arises from her life experiences and personal journey.

Reza Nosrati (b. 1981, Sanandaj, Iran) has received his BFA and MFA in Painting from Shahed University. Throughout his artistic career, Reza has been creating his paintings with a poetic approach and considerable finesse, using concepts such as life and loneliness. His recent works indicate notions of freedom, bewilderment, and fear. He is a member of the Association of Iranian Painters. He has held 10 solo shows and his works have been included in more than 50 group shows. Reza Nosrati lives and works in Tehran.

Shadi Salimi (born in 2000, Gorgan, Iran) is a painting graduate from Shiraz Art University and a master painting student at Tehran Art University. What has been constant in her artworks since the beginning is the use of quiet space and limited colors. Interest in the elements of nature and the limitations that exist for them today, have been the subject of her paintings. The display of this limitation is becoming more personal day by day and it includes individual feelings in response to the environment. In these paintings, elements that show growth and freedom are used to show these feelings.

Nasser Bakhshi (born 1983 | Tabriz, Iran). He began his artistic activities in 13/4. He is a painter and conceptual artist, as well as a specialist and expert in carpet weaving, collector, archivist, and museum curator. Bakhshi’s work and activities have been showcased in individual and group exhibitions worldwide, including in America, England, France, Belgium, Holland, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and more. He has also participated in prestigious international biennials. Throughout the years, Bakhshi has focused on collective memory, research, collecting, and creating works that reflect this perspective, which is the result of his life’s work. This collection consists of artifacts and documents related to collective memory, allowing for the tracing of events and concepts within it. This concept transforms the artist’s life into fundamental works and concepts in terms of contemporary history and its events, offering a fresh interpretation of contemporary history and reinterpreting it through the creation of art. This represents a critical representation of the current human condition.

Farnaz Baghban Pirayesh (b. 1989, Tabriz, Iran) has a BFA in Painting from Faculty of Art and Architecture of Islamic Azad University, Tabriz. Her work has been included in several group shows. Baghban Pirayesh lives and works in Tehran and Tabriz.

Nafiseh Moeini (b. 1975, Tehran, Iran) has received an MA in General Psychology from Shahid Beheshti University. Her often autobiographical paintings and sculptures, combine Persian and Eastern literature and painting with Western art motifs to create a fantastical world which is unique to her. She has held three solo shows in Iran, Switzerland, and USA and has participated in several group shows in Iran and around the world. Nafiseh lives and works in Tehran.

Azadeh Barbad (b. 1982, Tehran, Iran) has received her BFA in Sculpture from the University of Tehran. After her academic years, she began studying humans, their habitat, and matters related to it. Azadeh’s worldview revolves around individualism and individual identity. By examining the unmitigated expansion of urbanization, she explores and criticizes totalitarian systems. She has participated in a three-person show in Mohsen Galley. Azadeh Barbad lives and works in Tehran.

Shiva Abazariyan (b. 1997, Mashhad, Iran) is a postgraduate in painting from the University of Al-Zahra, Tehran. In her works, she most often lays humans and animals next to one another in order to depict characters that invite us to have a review of our inner self. In her recent collection, she has focused her attention on sketches, making the most of this method to demonstrate her intimate environment. An environment where forms and creatures obtain different functions.

Hanie Rahimian (born. 1996, Mashhad, Iran) she obtained her postgraduate diploma in painting from the University of Al-Zahra, in Tehran. Her pictorial universe has stilts in the constant presence of creatures and forms and the interactions between these two. Through the language of sketch, she has gotten to express her own fantasies and imaginary environment. Growth and perseverance stand out of her artworks. With a touch of humour, her paintings walk her audience through the path to evolution.

Zahra Mohammadzadeh was born in 1995 in Tehran. She is a graduate of Sourah University. Zahra creates new spaces and characters using 3D software. She tries to create his works by combining surreal space and digital portraits, and color and texture of metals.

Rouzbeh Nemarti Sharif was born in Tehran, Iran in 1980. He has a BS in Industrial Design
and an MA in Art History from the Tehran Art University. Rouzbeh has spent the last four
years sculpting and painting on canvas and also creating a unique style of painted bas
relief. His skilled use of color, diversity of form and home-made materials has brought a
variety of aesthetic possibilities to his artwork. Sharif is motivated by social issues and he
endeavors to share his views with his audience with his art. His recent work focuses on the
issue of violence which he approaches by using proactive, responsive, systematic forms.
The critical and questioning aspect of his work, along with his technique and modern
approach, gives his work a unique and contemporary perspective

Ashkan Bahjou, (born in 1987, Tehran, Iran), is a sculptor based in Tehran. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a master’s degree in interior design from the University of Fine Arts Tehran. In 2022, Ashkan held his first solo exhibition at the soo contemporary, drawing inspiration from Islamic architecture. His exhibition featured sculptures inspired by the novel “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino. With his background in architecture, Ashkan is able to create ceramic sculptures that evoke a sense of familiarity while belonging nowhere, entirely crafted by the artist’s mind. Ashkan’s second solo exhibition will be simultaneously held in Tehran and Dubai in March, offering art enthusiasts the opportunity to view his latest works. His unique perspective and ability to merge the realms of architecture and sculpture make him a promising artist in the contemporary art scene. Ashkan’s creations invite viewers to explore the intersection of tangible and intangible spaces, challenging the boundaries of physical and imagined landscapes. Overall, Ashkan Bahjou’s work reflects a deep understanding of form, space, and the relationship between art and architecture, making him an artist to watch in the art world.

Bardia Hashemzadeh (b. 1996, Tehran, Iran) is a Tehran-based visual artist. He has a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering and uses tiles as a component to design and build his works. In this collection of his works, he seeks to show the characteristics and hidden concepts in different characters, animals and actions by pixels (as the smallest visual element) and color. The amount of detail in works of art has a great impact on people’s recognizing and perceiving of the same shapes and designs. By reducing these details, in spite of simplifying the subject, Bardia Hashemzadeh creates a vast horizon for the audience, giving them different paths to explore each work.

Born in 1986 in Amol, Iran. she works as a visual artist. in 2010 she was charmed by porcelain and paper mache clay technique. she also teaches paper mache clay in various workshops in italy and iran. she organized and collaborated Artè Teà festival. In her recent works, installation and creates a very invisible connection between yourself and other people, which invites the viewer to collaborate.

Vanoosheh (b. 1998, Sari, Iran) is a Painting graduate from Tehran Sooreh University of Arts. It’s been two years since she focused on working and studying on Rosemary as herb. The herb embracing her everyday life, turning into -after a long time being taken for granted- the main single element of her œuvre d’art, keeping her busy exploring its visual characteristics as of today. She has gone beyond creating mere visual recreations and through a back-and-forth approach to her subject, she has challenged a part of her work to abstraction. An abstraction born from scrutiny and contemplation in one herb to be precise. The fundamental exploitability of her artworks lies on the fact that how immense and examinable can be the realm of the quest of the invisible surrounding us. Vanoosheh lives and works in Tehran.

(b. 1980, Tehran, Iran) based in Montreal since 2012, Ila Firouzabadi is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on ambiguous and sensitive forms, aiming to depict threatening, or at times threatened, worlds that refer to the tensions and conflicts inherent in present society through drawings and a combination sculpture and installation.
Firouzabadi received a BA in graphic design in 2005 from Azad University of Art and Architecture in Tehran and graduated from École supérieure des arts décoratifs de Strasbourg in 2009.
She has exhibited her work around the world, notably at Keramikmuseum and Kuenstlerkreis Ortenau Gallery Germany 2009, Musée Théodore Deck and Espace Apollonia France 2010, OBORO Art Center Canada 2013, MAI Cultural Center Canada ,2015. She also did residences in Tabakalera in Spain and Servais family collection in Brussles, Belgium.

Yasamin Salehi “Miiiin” (b. 1992, Isfahan, Iran) graduated in Arts & Crafts, specialized in Ceramic, from the University of Kashan. During the past ten years, she found painting as her principal focus which has led to her effort of combining her previous massive ceramic experience with painting to finally give birth to a solution for expressing her inner ideas. In her last collection “You look absent fella!” she took the most of volatile imagination, reaching the next step to flamboyant, fantastic paintings from the form of lower leg just to manifest an inner and at the same time, dreamlike situation. Puddle is the principal theme of her works, which she is busy exploring these days and through which she tries to incorporate her mental everyday events into images. To yield this itinerary, she has equipped herself with mass, digital illustration and fabric motifs as her raw materials. Miiiin is currently living and working in Isfahan.

Sarah Rafati (b.1997, Tehran, Iran). The principal method in her artworks has been collage on paper. She uses a palette of colored paper to trace her pencil sketches on it. Once entered performance phase, her drawings are changeable and she has no insistence on keeping their primary forms. Basically, changeability, destruction and reconstruction of a collage are considered to be a formidable feature for Sorahi that evoke the artist’s subconscious. 

In her previous collection, “Big Big Party”, she demonstrated man’s condition in sceneries that all referred to Iran. Now, however, geography is not of utmost importance for her, her new works are defined in a geography in her mind. Instinctiveness and free creation are the highest priorities in Sorahi’s artworks. She is currently making an animation of her collages and hopes to keep her quest of mediums. She lives and works in Tehran. 

Sorahi’s second Solo exhibition with Soo “Daddy issues” focusing on her childhood issues. Meanwhile, Sarahi’s story board showing her everyday contemporary life but underneath the story we could find another stories. Sorahi changed her medium from collage, to oil painting and plaster sculptures in her new series 2023.

(b. 1988, Tehran, Iran) The walls of Tehran have been representing the notion of depth since 2007. Depth is a word drawn from human’s inside, nature and conscience; a secret corner in every human being’s mind and heart; that part of human’s inward and profoundness accompanying him to the end of the rainbow. The repetition of Depth on life-deprived, void walls of the city is a reminder of the numerous layers of its being. His artworks are a love affair happening between Persian orthographic lines and dot ornamented with a touch of the street.

(b. 1994, Tehran, Iran) The cave: man’s first shelter, a cozy corner where his inner depth and contemplation come to existence. A blind, usually dim spot where gives birth to light and creativity. The cave will be man’s last shelter amidst his hectic urban life full of ruckus.
Ghaar’s first activity began by him writing his own name under various forms of Persian calligraphy all through the city, marking himself as one of the most productive Iranian graffiti writers. His passion and focus on the form of letters in Persian graffiti writing styles led him to a point where he met the ancient calligraphy world. To him, the calligraphy world is directly connected to today’s graffiti; inclination towards writing beautifully, cultivating style in writing and giving identity to letters. After years of experience and learning calligraphy, he then managed to reach a new identity in Iranian graffiti writing style through combining his personal visual experiences. From Ghaar’s perspective, Graffiti is calligraphy made of the city and its streets.

(b. 1989, Tehran, Iran) Xamoosh began graffiti by putting his signature on the walls of the western districts of Tehran, and through more than a decade of activity in Persian graffiti writing, became one of the precursors and influencers in this area. Having created various calligraphy styles, he then decided he was going to expand his career, using his love for painting as a fresh opportunity to gain new experiences and step into the field of urban art in a new level.
His active presence in the city during the last few years was replete with creating images talking of social issues and cultural origins, generally bearing short but deep messages.
The image of a lonely human in different situations is one of the remarkable points used by Xamoosh to transfer his message and abstract notions. A part of his late works has been inspired by Iranian miniature and Persian poetry; a selection of these will be shown in the forthcoming event.
He says: I have set up a special connection with the city and its streets beyond social rules and structures, always tried to add things to streets and receive others from them. This connection has been going on during these years, offering a great source of inspiration to me. I remember the day I was heading to Hafiz tomb by taxi, sunken in the thoughts that how, in the course of centuries, names have become places, losing their meaning more than before. In this collection, I have tried to illustrate a drop of the deep sea of Iranian culture, art and literature from the perspective of Xamoosh.

Artist Cv:

Xamoosh
Born 1989, Tehran, Iran
Lives and works in Tehran, Iran

Education
Self-thought artist

Solo Exhibitions
2018. Silent passage, Seyhoun Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran

Group Exhibitions
2009. “Spray 1387”. Arte and Mehrin Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2010. “Anti War”. Kamelogana, Oldenburger, Germany.
2011. “Vinyl Redux Art show”. Fun House Gallery, Detroit, United States.
2012. “Burn Da House”. Underground Event, Tehran, Iran.
2016. “Made In Iran”. Street Art Place, Gaeta, Rome, Italy.
2017. “Khoshnevisan”. Dena Gallery, Tehran, Iran.

Sara Ranj Keshan “Saraanj” (b. 1993, Tehran, Iran) holds a Bachelor degree in Painting and Arts Research from Tehran Central Open University. Feeding her curiosity and reflection, Saranj goes on a quest about Abrahamic religions with the visual culture of which she shares the most kinship. Inspired by the Revelation of John the Apostle, she believes it is due to man’s escape from the dreadful inner solitude that he finds refuge in words. “First, there was word …” creates a world of the unsaid, believes Saranj. The culture of Christianity has its foundations in image, and one of the key features of these images is the representation of pain. Once inspired by this visual culture, the fathomable meaning of solitude and her own ideology, she reaches out to painting and mass. In her previous collection, “Absolutely Personal, for Public” Saranj shared a fragment of her inner words with her audience. Basically, she seeks to articulate herself with unknown, new words. She is now living and working in Tehran.

Atena Fereydooni born in 1987,Tehran,Iran. Chart member of Iranian Painters’ Association
She graduated in Painting from Tehran Fine Arts University in 2011. Her first individual exhibition was held in Tehran, giving way to her participation so far in a score or more of foreign and domestic collective exhibitions. An artwork by her, PEACE, commissioned by Iranian Artists’ Forum, was presented as a gift to the European office of the United Nations in Geneva.
The core of her attention in her paintings and sketches lies upon the nature and human, the connection between natural elements, humans, the contrast and resemblance of archeological as well as modern notions.
Through a questioning fault-finder view, she entrenches deep down human relationships and existential experience, alongside sociological and anthropological issues in her works. She is currently living in Tehran.

She was born in 1987,in Tehran. She got her master’s degree in Painting from the University of Arts in Tehran. Her first individual exhibition took place in Tehran, in 2015. So far, she has been a part of more than 15 collective exhibitions. In 2015, she got an admission for participating in a one-month course held by the Summer Academy of Salzbourg, Austria – by the end of which her artworks were exhibited there. She defines this experience as one of the most important turning points of her art life, for it’s a remarkable achievement to get acquainted with artists from throughout the world.
For her, painting is inspired by nature, leaving her the conviction that it is indeed the biggest most eminent source for creating her pieces of art. The subjects of her paintings stem from moments of deep insights within her soul and the silence nurtured by nature, as well as her personal experiences. Colors and forms reveal an endeavour to recreate a world from her view. What Hanieh believes and tries to suggest to her audience, is the moment present once face-to-face with nature and the creation of her artwork, floating in a state of mindlessness. It is in that moment that nature looms as the view of a child, free from clichés.

In this collection, Hanieh has tried to reflect the virginity of her view on nature, suggesting her cohabitation with it to the audience.

(b.1985, Mazandaran, Behshahr, Iran) He has graduated in handicrafts from Shiraz arts university and started his career in 2014 with the exhibition Panah. He has established the basis and methods of his work upon empiricism and improvisation which provide the opportunity to freely use different tools and materials. Human interconnections are an important part of his works. In addition to numerous collective and individual exhibitions, he has been holding mental sketches workshops.

Artist Cv: 

Mehrdad Jafari
b. 1984 Behshahr, Mazandaran
Lives and works in Tehran, Iran.

Education
2008. B.A in Handicrafts, Shiraz University

Solo Exhibition
2004. Mani Art Gallery. Shiraz, Iran.
2005. Zarif Art Gallery. Shiraz, Iran.
2013. “Refuge”. Mehrva Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2014. “The dark room” Mehrva Art gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2020. “A recycling of shadows” Soo contemporary gallery, Tehran, Iran.

Group Exhibition
2009. “4-4”. Behshahr, Mazandaran, Iran.
2013. Advertising, Shiraz Cafe gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2013. 7 Samar Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2013. Azad Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2013. Hoom Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2015. “Cactus”, Dena Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2015. “Angels, Saints and Co”, Aaran Art Gallery Tehran, Iran.

(b. 2001, Isfahan, Iran) She is a painting undergraduate in the University of Arts and Architecture. Her love for the world of painting was the moving factor that pushed her to experiencing this practice as an autodidact. Also, she has had a knapsack filled with experiences in digital painting and rendering animations. She does her best to depict good mood and simplicity in her works through objects.

Paniz Sohrabi was born in Kermanshah in 1997. She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and from the age of 18 she expressed her thoughts in the form of paintings. Without prior training, she began to display her thoughts and mental structures, a display that was strange to others, but for her it was a display of beautiful imperfection that expresses the extraordinary characteristics that exist in the imperfect species of humans or non-humans, she tried saying that if we take command of the mind, that is the time when we can understand this imperfect but special imperfection.
(for real)

Koorosh Shishegaran was born in Qazvin in 1944, but then moved to Tehran with his family. After graduation from the Tehran Fine Art High School, he entered the Faculty of Decorative Arts where he did his BA in interior decoration in 1973. His more familiar style of painting is only one of the various artistic experiences of the Shishegaran’s artistic practices. These include a wide array of experiments on different media and a range of approaches. The works before 1981 could be classified into different series, including Mass Production Works
(1973-74), Appropriation of Works of Great Artists (1974-76), Postal Art (1976), Art+Art
(1976-77), and other two periods – with collaboration of his brothers, Behzad and Esmail –
Art for Production (1977-78), and Political Social Posters (1978-81). Since 1983 he has
concentrated more on painting and drawing with his familiar feature: line. This interest in
whirling lines, however, was obvious in his first solo exhibition in 1973. Shishegaran
exhibited these paintings first in 1989 and then 1992, 1997, and 2006 in solo shows.
Throughout these years, aside from developing his painting style and participating in many group exhibitions, both inside and outside Iran, he has created other series of works, such as War Drawings (1990), Photographic Works (2006), and Self Portraits (2008). His recent solo exhibitions were in London, Opera Gallery (2012), Bermondsey Project Space (2020) and a review on some of his paintings in Tehran (2015). Some of his group exhibitions outside Iran
are: WashArt in Washington D.C. 1977; Basel, Switzerland, 1978; The Millennium Painting
Exhibition in London 1999; exhibition of Iranian artists in Rome, 2000; Meridian Center
exhibitions in United States, 2001-2003; Barbican Center, 2001; Beijing Biennial, 2003;
Opera Gallery, London, 2013; … With the opening up of international auction houses to
Iranian art in recent years, numerous works of the artist have been sold in these auctions.

This artist possesses a dreamy fantasy-like pictorial world. Creating pieces of art, she does not confine herself within the ties of a particular material. She benefits from decoration, video, sounds, convenient objects and everything that facilitates expressing an idea. With this, the audience is faced with idea-oriented, intensely personal works just to savor a once-in-lifetime experience once poking every nooks and crannies of each piece.
There is more about her to come in “Soo”.

(b.1983, Tehran, Iran) She is a painter and poet based in Tehran, Iran. She is also a photographer and video maker. She received her M.F.A from arts department of University of Science and Culture in Tehran, Iran. She is interested in interacting with other artists through different mediums.
She curated virtual and physical exhibition Encounter for cultural exchange between Austrian and Iranian artists with the support of Austrian Cultural Forum Tehran in Soo Contemporary on 8 of March 2021. She has had several group exhibitions and festivals, among which the most noteworthy would be her attendance in Meridian International Center cultural event named Whishes and Dreams: Iran’s New Generation Emerges which was inaugurated in Washington D.C and held for 2 years in different states of the USA from 2008 to 2010.
She has had her solo exhibition in 2018 in Tehran, Iran with the title of The Silent Narrative of Things, and in 2019 in Primmersdorf, Austria with the title of Love. In 2020, her book Me and the Persimmon Tree with 45 paintings and poems from her Home series was published in Austria by Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, edited by Michael Pilz. In 2021, in Vienna, Austria, her poems were read in Farsi and German and her paintings were installed for one month in Aktionsradius Wien. She is a winner of the Styria Artist in Residence Scholarship in Graz 2021. The main concept of her works focuses mostly on Femininity and her role as a woman and human in her life and society.

Sale Sharifi (b. 1989, Tehran, Iran) has been passionate about painting on paper. Political and social history, literature and commemoration are the original themes of his works as up to present day. His paintings’ expressiveness could be seen through a gentle navigation of his works. Noticeable historical hints are present in most of his works. They have studied days in the past and at the same time, do not intend to reflect a nostalgic image. Absence of man in Sale’s works is indeed him being excluded from the universe he depicts. On the other side, he loves Iranian painting, owing his technics to Qajar miniature and paintings. Although he has them his own, neither in form nor in meaning he is pretender, but enchanter. In some sort, the origin of pencil on paper in the majority of his works can be concluded to be one of Iranian Painting’s Traditions. Currently, Salé lives and works in Tehran.

(b. 1993, Rasht, Iran) She has a journey among sketching, painting, and sculpturing. Her works are expressive and owe to her scrupulous view of her surroundings. Artists like Pani might be a handful, that’s why more reflection is needed once face-to-face with her works. For crossing the border of surface of what’s new and fathoming its meaning is way harder than analyzing familiar art.

The early works of Kaveh included collages having for the main idea humour with miniature painting forms and Iranian myths. His later works though, reflect clearly his keen interest in monsters and cats since childhood, presumably thriving to expose his mental world through deploying these creatures in a familiar environment.

(b. 1986, Tehran, Iran) He establishes a link among painting, academic drawing and technology just to profit them all in order to develop his ideas. In his former works, a trace of memories not so long gone from the era of the advent of computer in homes is seen, nothing to be short of his artistic vision. Peyman could be placed in the same family as artists like Justin Mortimer, with a more modern look and less dependence in comparison with mere painting in accomplishing a piece of art.
Peyman Konjkav has accompanied the collective exhibition of “Resemblance” in Soo gallery.

Toktam Saberi Ashrafi (b. 1980) She is a graduate in English Literature from Kerman University. She has a 10-year background of incessant activity in publishing, releasing books especially in the field of visual arts under the title Sheypoor publishing house. During recent years, her focus is not only on books, but also on drawing, finding this a medium to express her thoughts and studies. Photography, text, motion picture, print, and the act of drawing alone, in its conventional sense, have all served in her works. Beneath the layers of the collection “Sacred Geometry”, she has treated time, space, and time-space concepts. In her last collection “Use your illusion”, she has created abstract images based upon illusion, imagining the unseen in this world in the same level as the seen, having glimpses to the time, space and time-space notion. Toktam now lives and works in Tehran.

Anahita Shahamati was born in 1993 in Tehran. She graduated from Shahid Beheshti University in 2009 with a degree in General Medicine. Over the years, Anahita has continued her activities in various fields, such as: painting, flower arrangement, filmmaking, photography, etc., and her recent exhibition is the result of her experience with materials and colors.