NOWZARADAN
Jennifer Nowzaradan was born in Houston, Texas in 1980.
She found her first inspirations and passion for art in Houston's Modern, Contemporary Art and Natural Science Museums. At a young age she began exploring oil painting. Over time her style and subject matter of study was directly influenced by Cellular and Marine Biology combined with the study of Oriental Art and the geometric patterns that create Persian rugs and geometry found in nature.
Together Jennifer's parents both played an impactful role in her artistic exploration. Her father is a surgeon from Tehran, Iran. Her mother grew up on a farm in Nashville, Tennessee. Together they were two creative forces that had a great impact on her imagination and development as an artist. As a child she would watch her father sketch very detailed drawings of tissue and surgical instruments that would later be used for studies in laparoscopic surgery. She found his work fascinating and was introduced to viewing various biological samples under a microscope. She soon discovered that anything minutely detailed such as patterns in nature, germs and microorganisms had great meaning in their structure. Her first artworks were created using micron pens her father introduced as well as oil paint.
At the age of fifteen she discovered scuba diving. While in high school she spent most of her summers studying open water diving. Her diving experiences began to show up in her artwork. After high school she moved to Austin where she completed her Fine Arts degree with a BA of Arts at St. Edward's University with a focus on painting. As an undergraduate her work was critiqued by artist Ray Donley and used in one of his demonstrations explaining how to paint in layers integrating art elements and using design principles.
She began to display work publicly in 2001 beginning at Wet Salon on South Congress Avenue and in several additional locations in the central Austin area. In 2004 she began Alex Grey's Visionary Art Intensive in New York and continued the course for 5 consecutive years. Her portfolio has evolved to be a combination of visionary works with botanical motifs and plants, traditional Persian motifs integrated with ocean scapes and op art patterns. She is currently is teaching her 11th year as a high school art instructor and working on a new series of abstract art and portraits to be ready by 2021.
