Negin Mahzoun is an artist based in New York. Her practice focuses on observation, memory, and gender. She explores these issues through her personal experiences and cultural identity. Negin looks at the woman’s body as an object and subject with the perspective of self-portrait and layers of history and literature. She uses images in miniature paintings as a reference for self-portraits. In addition, she expresses her work through sculptures, installations, paintings, prints, photography, and textile. In her current practice, she uses sewing, which connects her to her family’s professional heritage.
Textile has been historically used as a surreptitious tool to depict trauma and transmit intimate emotional and psychological visual narratives. Investigating the consequences of social-cultural trauma and its injurious impact on the body and psyche has been a central core of Negin’s practice. Stitching and sewing for Negin are the essential elements to bond her sentiments and materials to convey remembrance through the hands, craft, and textiles. She starts with a self-portrait on the fabric and stitches repeatedly until the image fades. The repetitive act of damaging the self-portrait with a needle and simultaneously covering it is a metaphor for self-destruction often associated with those suffering from trauma.
Negin uses textile to communicate trauma with a fresh approach, to visualize the story of oppression, and to share the trauma as a novel treatment.
Negin received her MFA in Studio Art from the City College of New York. Her works have been presented in many groups, solo exhibitions, art fairs, international festivals, and biennials.