Tooraj Khamenehzadeh is an artist based in New York. He began his artistic practice in theater before shifting to photography and video art. Today, photography, image-based projects, and sometimes the utilization of his theater background inform the basis of his works.

Born and raised in a region where Eastern philosophy prevails drew him toward an interest in mysticism and poetry. Like Tarighat for a mystic — a mystic’s spiritual pilgrimage — he uses art as means of exploring, using intuition as a guide, and achieving a subjective experience. His works are the results of his insights along this path, through which he tries to share layers of various realities with his audience, building on the historical sensibilities of the past and the lived experiences of the present.

His work mixes the personal with the sociopolitical — raising questions about death, solitude, fear, distress, time, the reason for existence, metamorphosis, crisis, and oblivion — and experiments with various image-based techniques and displays, staging scenarios and using dramatic elements to create an imaginative blend in a combination that is part theatrical, part experimental and part documentary.

Khamenehzadeh’s works have been presented in various international festivals, exhibitions, and biennials such as Iran Photo Biennial (Iran), Monnaie de Paris (France), Polyforme Video Art Festival (France), Chongqing Photo and Video Biennale (China), International Art Festival (Nepal) and Now&After Video Art Festival (Russia). His works have also been published in different books and magazines like African Textile Today (UK), PIX (India), Connaissance des Arts (France), and Canvas (UAE). He has also participated in several international artists’ workshops and artist residencies, including Theertha (Sri Lanka), Khoj (India), SaNsA (Ghana), Vasl (Pakistan), and Organhus (China). He received his MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York.

In addition to his activities as an artist, Khamenehzadeh has been on the curatorial and management teams of many arts and cultural projects, including arts exchange programs, artist residencies, exhibitions, and international workshops.

Complete CV [for download]