Stephan Jahanshahi: Not Native
December 1-31, 2017

For PhotoNOLA 2017, Solo Espresso presents an 8 piece, narrative body of work, Not Native by artist Stephan Jahanshahi.

Not Native is a multimedia art piece consisting of text written in graphite on 8 photographs printed on mulberry paper. Shown together, the works offer a poetic retelling of the immigration experiences of both the artist and his father, an Iranian-American, paired with photographs of biological samples of plants and animals brought to North America by humans after the start of European colonization. Some of these species are considered invasive by the USDA, some are cultivated, but none are native.

BIO
Stephan Jahanshahi is a visual artist working primarily in lens-based media. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography program, his work is characterized by its investigations into personal experience, the combination of written and visual languages and a heightened emphasis on the object. Originally from St. Louis by way of Montreal, he now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.