Aryana Minai (b.1994) makes paper-based sculptures and wall works that are intimately linked to

philosophies and histories of architecture, migration, labor, the body, and the handmade. Minai identifies paper

as a material that links storytelling, tradition, and craft, centering her practice on the diasporic subject's daily

lived experiences as she draws from her personal archive of decontextualized Iranian-American content. The

architectural quality of Minai’s works embody a lived survival instinct—to preserve historic space and inhabit

safe spaces—as well as an interest in what salvaged and saved materials can teach us. Using bricks and

stones from buildings that no longer exist, woodblocks used a generation ago to create textile patterns, parts

of vernacular decorative architecture, Minai embosses into paper that she pulps from found materials in her

studio. Minai envisions architecture as a living entity that continually sheds and acquires memories as bodies

pass through its spaces.

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Aryana Minai received a BFA from Art Center College of Design in 2016, an MFA from Yale School of Art in

2020, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. This is her inaugural solo exhibition at Shulamit

Nazarian, Los Angeles. Select solo exhibitions include James Fuentes, New York; Ochi Projects, Los Angeles;

and Steve Turner, Los Angeles. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary

Art, Los Angeles; Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles; Benton Museum of Art, Claremont, CA; Brand

Library, Glendale, CA, amongst others. Minai was the recipient of The Hopper Prize Shortlist in 2023, and has

held residencies at The Macedonia Institute, Chatham, NY; The Print Shop LA, Los Angeles; and Maple St.

Construct, Omaha, NE. She was a visiting artist and lecturer at California State University and University of

California, Santa Barbara and a visiting artist at Yale School of Art MFA Program in 2023. Minai’s work has

been featured in ARTFORUM; Art Review LA; WhiteHotMagazine; and Cultured Magazine, amongst others.

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Featured above, from "Women Making History": Field Echo III, 2023, Dyed handmade paper mounted on panel, 41”H x 47”W