Naz Shahrokh
Naz Shahrokh (born 1969) is an Iranian-born visual artist and educator whose multidisciplinary, conceptual practice spans miniature painting, sculptural assemblage, site-specific installation, land art, and video art. She lives and works in Abu Dhabi, and has previously lived in Paris, Los Angeles, Cairo, and Brooklyn.
Naz Shahrokh
- Name
- Naz Shahrokh
- Born
- 1969
- Birthplace
- Tehran, Pahlavi Iran
- Occupation
- Visual artist, educator
- Known for
- Painting, sculpture, installation art, video art, land art
- Movement
- Conceptual art
- Nationality
- Iran
- Fields
- contemporary art · conceptual art · land art
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Naz Shahrokh (born 1969) is an Iranian-born visual artist and educator whose multidisciplinary, conceptual practice spans miniature painting, sculptural assemblage, site-specific installation, land art, and video art. She lives and works in Abu Dhabi, and has previously lived in Paris, Los Angeles, Cairo, and Brooklyn.
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Naz Shahrokh (born 1969) is an Iranian installation artist, painter and teacher, among other activities. The installation artist worked for Zayed University. Genres include conceptual art, contemporary art and land art.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Naz Shahrokh • Born — 1969 • Birthplace — Tehran, Pahlavi Iran • Occupation — Visual artist, educator • Known for — Painting, sculpture, installation art, video art, land art • Movement — Conceptual art
Early life and education
Early life and education
Shahrokh was born in 1969 in Tehran, Iran, the great-granddaughter of Iranian politician and elected Zoroastrian representative Keikhosrow Shahrokh. She has described a well-traveled childhood, moving from Iran to Paris at age four, to Los Angeles at eleven, and to Brooklyn, New York, at twenty. She speaks Persian, French, and English, and has spoken of growing up with a deep connection to her Zoroastrian faith and its traditions. She earned a BFA in Painting (1993), an MFA in Painting (1997), and an MS in Art History (1997), all from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.
Notable works
Notable works
In protest of a New York City decision to end glass recycling, Shahrokh created Stratosphere (2002–2004), a mountain-shaped installation built from collected bottles. In Abu Dhabi, Haft-Sin Zazen (2010), made of piles of salt on white cloth referencing the traditional Iranian New Year table setting, has been read as alluding to the region's reliance on desalination — a connection writer Sharon Parker has also linked to Shahrokh's earlier years in Egypt. Column Wall (2010) stacked six months of collected local newspapers from floor to ceiling, intended to represent the tree used to produce them.
Selected exhibitions
Selected exhibitions
• 2024: Be Fekret Hastam, XVA Gallery, Dubai, UAE • 2023: Resonating Tides, Women's Pavilion, Expo City Dubai (COP28) • 2022: United Arab Emirates: Living Landscape/Living Memory, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, D.C. • 2020 and 2019: The Ocean Refuses No River and Wish Tree, XVA Gallery, Dubai • 2004: 24th Annual Artist-in-the-Marketplace Exhibition, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York
Awards and publications
Her honors include the Artist-in-the-Marketplace Fellowship, The Bronx Museum of the Arts (2004), and a Change Inc. (Robert Rauschenberg Foundation) grant (2003). She authored the chapter "Land Art in the United Arab Emirates," in Return to the Source: New Energy Landscapes from the Land Art Generator Initiative Abu Dhabi, edited by Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry (Prestel, 2020), pp. 22–26,.
Teaching
Shahrokh taught fine art and art history at Pratt Institute from 1998 to 2008, and in the Performing and Visual Arts department at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, from 2004 to 2006. Since 2008, she has taught at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi.
Style and influences
Shahrokh's work draws on Persian miniature painting, land art and earthworks, Minimalism and Conceptual art, and Native American sandpainting. Working primarily with detritus, both synthetic and organic, she transforms discarded materials into new forms, an approach she has linked to her Zoroastrian-rooted interest in harmony with the natural environment. She has described her practice as assembling visual narratives that are "gentle to the eye as well as revealing." Her installation 22.1, comprising glass jars, folded linen shirts, and a silver spoon in a suitcase, has been described as engaging in artistic dialogue with the work of Ana Mendieta and Joseph Beuys.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.McEneaney, Caroline. Making maps into art. Time Out Abu Dhabi. 13. 5. February 4, 2014.
- 2.APTALAB. Naz Shahrokh. Made in Mind. October 25, 2014.
- 3.Kazan, Sophie. The Nature of Art by Conceptual Artist Naz Shahrokh. Islamic Arts Magazine. Monolit. July 12, 2012.
- 4.About. Naz Shahrokh (official website).
- 5.Resonating Tides. Expo City Dubai. December 2023.
- 6.Wilks, Jon. Naz Shahrokh. Time Out Abu Dhabi. 9. 4. 44. March 29, 2010.
- 7.Rutigliano, Dario. Naz Shahrokh: Interview. LandEscape Art Review. 20–35. November 2014.
- 8.Parker, Sharon L. Naz Shahrokh: Remembering, Recycling and Roots. Contemporary Practices. 8. 206–211. March 2011.
- 9.Naz Shahrokh. Zayed University.
- 10.Naz Shahrokh. XVA Gallery.
- 11.Naz Shahrokh. Tashkeel.
- 12.Exhibition Resume. Naz Shahrokh (official website).
- 13.2022 Festival Artists. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
- 14.Genocchio, Benjamin. Art Review; A Chance to Fill Up on Visual Treats. The New York Times. 93. April 25, 2004. 0362-4331.
- 15.Prestel. Return to the Source: New Energy Landscapes from the Land Art Generator Initiative Abu Dhabi. 2020. 978-3-7913-5938-0.
References
Citations
References
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