WORKS OF ART
Farnaz Battikhi, is a Canadian-Iranian painter and miniaturist. Born in Tehran, Iran, to a Persian mother and a Jordanian father, she lived a life of multiculturalism and travel. She has participated in several exhibitions around the world, from Africa, Asia, the Middle-East and North America.
Surrounded from childhood with the poetry of Rumi, Sa’di and Hafez, and reading the marvelous tales of the heroic warriors and fox-eyed princesses of the Shahnameh, the gold-gilded books many of these poems and stories came in had intricate, delicate and colorful miniatures accompanying them, which lent an air of divinity and sacredness to both the stories and the art. Looking at the exuberant and detailed paintings made her feel like she was stepping out of time and into a different, secret and intensely magical realm. Her love of story-telling combined with her love of her Persian heritage are what started her on the journey of learning the traditional Iranian art of miniatures. Preserving old mythological stories and creating new ones using brush, paint and canvas are both her passion and objective. Her vision is to bring to life the many folk tales that she had heard or read of as a child, and to project them in her own vivid style while staying true to the fine art of Persian miniatures, thus tapping into past and present. Her hope is that those who experience her art can also experience the sense of magic and bewilderment she herself experienced as a child, and which she continues to experience whenever her senses are fully confronted and assailed by beauty.