Nima Jeizan
Bio: Nima Jeizan (b.1994) is an Iranian-American sculptor who grew up in Tehran and Virginia, and currently works in New York City. He often invites friends to come to his studio, drink Persian tea, and shell pistachios, while conjuring the spirit animals inside his sculptures. Nima plays Kourosh Yaghmaei, Alice Coltrane, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Phillip Glass, and Grace Jones while drilling, suturing, blending, rubbing, pouring, and dying his pieces. He holds a BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University and is an MFA candidate at Columbia University. You may find Nima on the dancefloor of Basement in Maspeth, Queens.
nimajeizan.com
Instagram @nimajeizan
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: Exile and belonging merge into new forms; the human and non-human crosspollinate into pomegranates, glass, pistachios, epoxy putty, animal horns, and horsehair. My process embraces the djinn (the witchy possessor in pre-Zoroastrian mythology) as the spirit of an intuitive art practice. What are their new lives in the diaspora? José Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia (2009) proposes that queerness must strive towards futurity. I want to propel all of you towards a queer time when a dried pomegranate becomes something more than a fruit husk. Its shriveled rind masquerades as leather, human skin, or that which is beyond human or animal – not-yet-here. My sculptures are charged with potentiality for another lifeform – a preserved reincarnation similar to taxidermy or mummification. The fruits of Iran thrive in a world of in-betweenness – harvesting and being harvested. The scale of these organic forms suggest utility; the competing desires to touch and to retreat imbue each apparition with a sense of vitality and sexuality, leading to an aura of harmonious mayhem. I wish to transcend the present time, moving into a simultaneously prehistoric and future form. In this world, the sun is hotter and there is no water. Everything is dry. The human body melts away and the only remnants are limbs, tumors, and organs. I create suspended sculptures, floor piec- es, and fusions that struggle against the orientation of gravity; a shared earthly environment between my body and theirs. Nima Jeizan (b.1994) is an Iranian-American sculptor who grew up in Tehran and Virginia, and currently works in New York City. He often invites friends to come to his studio, drink Persian tea, and shell pistachios, while conjuring the spirit animals inside his sculptures. Nima plays Kourosh Yaghmaei, Alice Coltrane, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Phillip Glass, and Grace Jones while drilling, suturing, blending, rubbing, pouring, and dying his pieces. He holds a BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University and is an MFA candidate at Columbia University. You may find Nima on the dancefloor of Basement in Maspeth, Queens.
Nima Jeizan
Enter my Husk, 2024
Hand-dyed pistachio shells, bronze, and epoxy putty
Courtesy of the artist
&
Motherlode, 2024
Dried pomegranate, epoxy putty, pistachio shells, horn, brass, bronze, and horsehair
Courtesy of the artist
&
Turning Red, the Blue Veins Remember, 2024
Horsehair, epoxy putty, hand-dyed pistachio shells, and horn
Courtesy of the artist
&
False Arils, 2024
Dried pomegranate, epoxy putty, pistachio shells, brass, glass, and bronze
Courtesy of the artist
First Year Exhibition
Nima Jeizan
Peechak (Tendril), 2023
Goatskin, horsehair, dried pomegranate, brass
70" x 30" x 15"
Courtesy the artist
