Roshan Houshmand is an Iranian/American artist who was raised in Iran and the Philippines. She has a BA from Bennington College and her MA and MFA are from Rosary College Graduate School of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy. Roshan’s work is exhibited and collected in Europe and the US. She has received numerous NYSCA Decentralization and A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Grants, a NYFA SOS Grant and she is a 2006 grant recipient from the US Department of State Art in Embassies Program for the exhibition “21st Century American Women Artists” at the US Mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium. Roshan recently received Special Merit Recognition for the Representation of Scientific/Mathematical Principle/Phenomena at “The Next Big Idea Festival” in Los Alamos, NM. Other major exhibitions include “Totem” at the Boca Raton Museum of Art” in Florida, “Evolving Perceptions” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and Rene Metras Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. She teaches painting and art appreciation at SUNY Delhi, NY.
Roshan's paintings examine relationships between symbol, pattern and chance. Incorporating oriental designs, floral patterns and mirrors, elements of the east are integrated in a western context. The west becomes a metaphor of the east, and visa versa. The images speak with the appropriate élan for the western context of experience. The mood evoked is a perfect and harmonious mixture of the inexplicable mystery of the eastern gardens and the transcendent spirituality of the western abstraction.