I am a visual artist based in Toronto. I have my BA in Fine arts, and a degree in Computer animation program from Sheridan Collage and graduated from the academy of art Canada, where I teach now. I am an oil painter, and I had exhibited my works in Toronto, New York, Sweden, London and Iran.
The focus of my paintings is the dream world, the subconscious and the connection to one’s soul, meshed with inspiration from nature, the world of plants and their organism. Myths, personal dreams, in conjunction with a Goethean approach to observing nature plays a significant role in my paintings. The glamourous and magical quality of the old masters has a significant presence in my work, with their magical veils of glazes.
I recently started a new project using copper surface instead of canvas. In this project I am using different treatments to oxidize its surface on some areas, these accidental patterns that appear absolutely randomly helps me work with this surface as a living entity. I depict a dream world with the memory of plants and nature rather than painting the exact replica of what I see. I use broken colors which gives it an impressionistic effect, along with patterns and fractals that read as magical landscapes with forests and bodies of water. This surface is the closest thing for me to the alchemy of painting.
Artist Statement
Moojan Nazmi is an oil painter based in Toronto. With a variety of different trainings, both classical and contemporary, her paintings meditate on dream-worlds while simultaneously rooting themselves in the sensory realm of observation. Myths, personal dreams, in conjunction with a Goethean approach to observing nature, all play a factor in this balance. For her this delicate dance is what she refers to as Magical Realism. This impulse extends to the concrete aspects of her practice as well. Like the content of the Image, the image itself has two sides to it and must be held to the earth by a deep, and perhaps alchemical interest in the materiality of paint itself. For her this involves experimenting with different materials, including copper surfaces, pigments and techniques. She finds in the seemingly simple elements, surface, pigment and oil, an inexhaustible realm of possibilities.
