March 7, 2011, Previews

Soraya Sarah Nazarian: Strength Revealed

Sat, Mar 05, 2011

Married with four children, Mrs. Nazarian immigrated to the United States from Iran with her family in 1978, in the midst of the Iranian revolution and fall of the Shah. The move forced the family to leave most of their most valued possessions, and rebuild their lives in Los Angeles – the city with the largest Iranian population outside Iran. The family has become an American success story, with Mrs. Nazarian as the matriarch and spiritual center.

Mrs. Nazarian is guided by the raw beauty of stone: its inherent shape, texture, grain, color and relative hardness. This is evident in her depictions of the human form and its parts; in bold interpretations of Jewish ritual objects; in works that refer specifically to the Nazarian family; and in non-objective works that appear to conform most closely to the innate properties and form of the stone. She also travels to the famed marble quarries of Pietrasanta, Italy each year to select her stone – and is one of the few women to do so.

Proceeds from the exhibition will benefit the Soraya Sarah Nazarian Artists Initiative, a program designed to assist artists with obtaining studio and exhibition space in the Los Angeles area.