Born 1957

Raised by parents who embraced Western traditions, Shirin Neshat completed her MFA at the University of California, Berkeley, while the Iranian revolution took place.  She returned to Iran in 1990 and mined the dissonance she sensed, producing her first major body of work, The Women of Allah.  Using video and photography, Neshat explores contemporary social codes through her art of discerning human characters from facial features, notably with Farsi writing superimposed, and captures mysterious moments to both comment on and transcend her subject matter.  She won the International Award of the Venice Biennale (1999) for her Turbulent and Rapture projects and the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography.