Nicky (Nikzad) Nodjoumi’s work explores the legacies of personal and collective trauma—including the artist’s own experiences of the Islamic republic from which he was displaced—and ideas of memory and power that loom over present-day Iran.

Nodjoumi paints and prints flattened, translucent figures that reference Persian history, vulnerable or sexualized animals, and Western men inspired by news clippings. He splices bodies onto one another to create a pastiche of history and evoke a sense of violence, while casting the figures into an untethered space with abstract painterly backgrounds, locating the work in his imagination as much as a recognizable history.

Learn about Nodjoumi’s efforts to extract a significant early series of his paintings from Iran in the HBO documentary A Revolution on Canvas, which debuted March 5, 2024.