Parvaneh
Farid
PhD -PaR-
candidate
The
University of Winchester
T:
07850 160 661
Parvaneh
Farid is an Iranian born “Mixed Media” artist who started her creativity in her
childhood. She took interest in designing and making her own toys, dressing
them up and making things out of garden mud and leftover plaster. From the age
of eight she was admired for her outstanding ability in drawing, calligraphy
and expressive writing; and as a teenager she taught herself to paint in oil.
Her
student life in Iran was interrupted by the death of her parents. Her parental
heritage was confiscated by the government and her right to higher education
was denied due to her affiliation to the Baha’i faith. As a result, she left
her homeland for the West and arrived in the UK where she naturalised and began
to work as an au-pair before doing her nursing training. During this period,
she returned to her art in her free time, taught herself clay modelling and
took some singing lessons.
After
she qualified as a nurse, she turned to academic art and attended Anglia Ruskin
University, Winchester School of Art, the University of Winchester, Kent
Institute of Art and Design and the University of Cambridge, achieving an undergraduate
certificate in music, a BA in sculpture, an MA in graphic fine art and a PGCE in
creative art.
Currently, Parvaneh is doing a “Practice as Research” PhD in art at
the University of Winchester on the notion of the commonality of invisible and
visible lines in various art formats. She believes: “Breaking
through the fear of translating the lines of one art format into another
provides the artist with an opportunity to find him or herself in a virgin
world of possibilities. It allows the artist to feel free to see, to express
him or herself, and to create work in an innovative manner, regardless of what
is expected of him or her. That could be partially due to being a beginner in a
new field which has not imprinted its norms on his or her mind.”
Parvaneh
also gained a postgraduate certificate in Women’s Studies and used the language
of art in portraying the uprising of Iranian women and the role of the veil, or
“hejab”. She is studying the life and work of notable Iranian women; Tahirih,
Parvin Etesami and Forough Farrokhzad, whose poetry could be regarded as a
chain of turning points in the emancipation of Iranian women.
Parvaneh’s
previous exhibitions “Looking Like a God” and “A Silence to be Heard”
won her the “Clyde Hopkins Award
for Valorous Art”, the “Linda Granade Memorial Trust Prize” and the “CPL
Sculptural Photography Prize”, and received some media coverage. She is
now launching another exhibition of her mixed media art: “Translating the
Lines”. This exhibition is open to the public, and onlookers are invited to
step into her life as a British artist who began her academic career in exile
from her native Iran.
