Soraya Sharghi

Restrictions imposed by the religious society I grew up in simultaneously limited and expanded my creativity. As a post-colonial Middle Eastern artist struggling with the dominance orientalist imagery in a globalized world, I confront this issue through religion, politics, gender and/or hybridity. I challenge the simplicity of these stereotypes by personalizing and historicizing them. My art raises questions concerning different pictures of the East and representations of orientalism. The iconography of my work is focused on the intersections of reality and fantasy while its major conceptual concern has been by far the formation of my identity- I draw myself as cartoon like characters, stemming from my childhood, when first I learned how to draw a girl from my mother through calligraphy. Using these images I create aggressive, “cute” characters that explore the tension I feel between religious and my understanding of the stereotypes associated with my culture. In my art practice, I am playing with these two realities through humor. The world I create gives me the power to comment on otherness.