Born in Tehran (Iran) in 1986, Hoda Kashiha lives and works in Tehran (Iran).
A double graduate of the University of Tehran (Iran, 2009) and Boston University (USA, 2014), Hoda Kashiha temporarily resides in the United States before returning to Iran in 2016, where she decides to live and work. Her years on American soil have resulted in her receiving several awards such as the MacDowell Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Fellowship and the Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award. Hoda Kashiha is now considered one of the most talented artists on the burgeoning Iranian scene.
Although Hoda Kashiha's pictorial approach is in the American pop vein, her works address themes that resonate with the complex socio- political situation in her native Iran. The manifestations of hostility, oppression and struggle that she observes on a daily basis fuel her reflection, encouraging her to tackle sensitive subjects such as identity, femininity and gender, among others. In the face of violence and gravity, the artist often employs fantasy and humor: a mechanism known by populations subjected to systems of oppression, allowing them to endure the political and social situation of their country. A constant interplay between the visible and the invisible, between what is admitted and what must be concealed, takes place in Hoda Kashiha's paintings. Mixing the tragic with the comical, the artist's works deliver, through the liveliness of the colors used and the poetry that emerges, messages of hope and freedom.
Hoda Kashiha composes most of her works from preparatory sketches. These preliminary phases allow her to explore the complexity of her fictional characters, crossed by multiple emotions -and sometimes antagonistic- such as love, hate, joy, sadness, anger and fear. The tensions that animate her subjects find a formal echo in the artist's pictorial language: Hoda Kashiha constantly moves from reality to fantasy, from figuration to abstraction. The accumulation of skillfully juxtaposed images fragments the traditional pictorial plan, deconstructing the narrative. These different associations have been made using both traditional and digital techniques, using for example collage of cut paper or made with digital painting tools.
In 2022, Hoda Kashiha presented her first institutional solo exhibition at Passerelle, Centre d'Art Contemporain in Brest (France) and her first solo exhibition at Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris (France).
Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions in Iran, the United States and Europe including City Prince/sses. Dhaka, Lagos, Manila, Mexico City and Tehran at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (France, 2019), Human Condition at the former Metropolitan Medical Center in Los Angeles (United States, 2016), Unexposed at Tour & Taxis in Brussels (Belgium, 2012).
Hoda Kashiha's work is in the collections of the Commonwealth Hotel in Boston (USA) and the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center in Boston (USA).
Hoda Kashiha's work has been represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels, since 2020.