Kimia Ferdowsi Kline

Born in 1984 in Nashville, Tennessee
Lives and works in New York, NY, US

Kimia Ferdowsi Kline earned an M.F.A. in visual arts at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011 and holds a B.F.A. in painting from Washington University in St. Louis. Most recently she was honored to be awarded the Basil Alkazzi Detroit Residency through the New York Foundation for the Arts. As an extension of her studio practice, Kimia also curates the art collection of Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, NY.

My work draws on the stories I grew up hearing about my parents’ life in Tehran. Unable to visit or return to Iran due to religious persecution, I’ve established a connection with this ghost homeland through the process of painting. My paintings are reconstructed experiences based on imagination, invention, and the collective memory of my family. Constructing these images serves as an arena for experience—a way for me to engage in a time and place and with family members I’m otherwise barred from knowing. The process of making these images is a way of repairing a certain sense of cultural amputation from my place of origin, and reclaiming a central element of my identity.