Open Studio with Omid Mokri

Open Studio Dates:
* March 8 – April 3

Headlands Bay Area Fellow Omid Mokri is working in the Project Space studio for the month of March, and welcomes guests, by appointment, to visit and view in-progress and finished works.

During this time he will be recreating the painting process that he invented during his time in San Quentin: applying crushed crayon and color pencil to a canvas made of bedsheets cured with tea and milk.

Mokri is an Iranian American artist classically trained in Iran in miniatures. His practice began with classical Persian- and European-style paintings in the tradition of the vanitas, and includes contemporary painting and drawing and intricate books inlaid with natural materials.

For Mokri, making art became a vehicle for survival while in prison in the United States. While incarcerated, he used his work to tell the stories of inmates fighting to persevere against a system denying them their humanity, sketching portraits on commonplace, symbolic items such as non-sufficient fund envelopes; he now uses his work as a platform for social commentary and advocacy.