My practice explores the intersections of nature, ruins, and symbolic forms as meditations on time, resilience, and transformation. I am drawn to what is fragile and fading, to the awareness that we rarely know when something is experienced for the last time, and to the possibility of preserving memory in the face of disappearance.
I paint imagined landscapes where past and future, wilderness and ruins, coexist on a single plane. Symbols—solitary trees, pillars, moons, and deserted dwellings—speak of solitude and loss, while open skies, flowing water, and infinite pathways gesture toward hope and renewal. These spaces invite viewers into moments of concealment and exposure, where they find themselves both indoors and outside, at the dusk and dawn of civilization.
Underlying this practice is a fascination with endurance. Mountains, ruins, and other natural and built forms remind me that serenity often conceals immense pressures, and that resilience is not static but dynamic. The work reflects survival—how we, like the landscapes we inhabit, are shaped by silence, rupture, and the possibility of renewal.
Bio
Azadeh Nia (b. 1988, Tehran, Iran) received an MFA from the University of The Arts London and a BA from University of Science And Culture in Tehran, Iran. Her work has been exhibited at Alexander Berggruen, New York, NY; Fridman Gallery, New York, NY; Hashimoto Contemporary, New York, NY; Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY; Gallery Fritz, Santa Fe, NM; Mill Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM; and Simons Contemporary, London, UK. Nia was an artist in residence at Silver Arts Projects, New York, NY; Wassaic Project Artist Residency, NY; and Ucross Foundation Residency, WY. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.