Azita Panahpour

Azita Panahpour is a visual artist living in New York City. She explores themes of identity, memory and transformation by creating a dynamic gestural vocabulary drawn from the Farsi alphabet and poetry. Rather than focusing on the phonetic function of individual letters, Panahpour highlights their aesthetic qualities—curves, lines, and points—as they form the base of a new visual language. Expressed through steel sculpture and multi-layered painted canvases, her work communicates through rhythm, repetition, scale, and movement. Her deconstruction centers around the Nasta’liq script, a Persian calligraphy style deeply rooted in Iranian art and literature. Through abstraction and manipulation of the script’s expressive form, Panahpour’s work invites viewers to intuitively connect with her cultural narrative, regardless of their familiarity with Persian writing. Her abstracted letters become visual poems, transforming language from a tool of communication into an emotive and artistic force. Stripped from its historic role, the letters become living conduits for the ever shifting rhythms of existence. Through this lens, the inevitability of change and the acceptance of imperfection emerge as enduring themes, resonating throughout her body of work.

Azita Panahpour launched her career as an art director in New York City’s advertising industry, where her engagement with typography and design inspired an exploration into the deconstruction of language. Her fascination with the visual forms of Persian poetry, combined with a profound desire to reconnect with her cultural heritage, added a multidimensional layer to her artistic practice. Today, her work spans sculpture, painting, and photography, with solo and group exhibitions nationwide. Her artworks are part of private, corporate and The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection.

Solo Exhibitions

2023 - The National Arts Club, New York - Shattered Poems

2014 - Fotofest Participating Spaces - From Here to Where - Photography series

Selected Group Exhibitions

2025 - Nature and Form, Sculptural Dialogues Across Time and Place, Leila Heller Gallery, New York

2024- Deck the Walls, Leila Heller Gallery, New York

2024 - Editions Dubai - Leila Heller Gallery

2024 - ‘…I Kept The Night Vigil…' Curated by Behrang Samadzadegan, Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai

2023 - Powerhouse Arts, Brooklyn, Top ten finalist

2023 - Breaking Barriers, The Art from Iran, Sausalito Center for the Arts, California

2022 - Venice International Art Fair , Venice, Italy

2021 - MvVO Art Ad Art show - The Oculus New York

2020 - The Other Art Fair, Los Angeles, online

2020 - MvVO Art Ad Art show, The Oculus New York

2018 - Sotheby’s, New York, MvVO Art Ad Art show

2018 - The Other Art Fair, New York

2017 - Sausalito Center for the Arts

2014 - Houston Center for Photography - From Here to Where - Group Photo Exhibition and Auction

& selected for numerous group shows in photographic projects across the nation and solo photo exhibition in Cuba.