Sara Rastegarpouyani is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist. Earned her BFA in Graphic Design, and an MFA in Illustration both from the most prestigious art universities in Iran. She immigrated to the United States in 2015 to pursue her second MFA degree in Studio Art in Glass. She currently resides in Savannah, GA where she teaches as a professor of foundation studies at Savannah College of Art & Design.
The experience of immigration, immersing in a completely foreign environment and confronting profound changes in her life, directly affected the development and trajectory of her research and artistic approaches. From that point up to the present her works are focused and divided into three main stages:
• The gradual destruction of cultural heritage and cultural identity.
• The relationship between cultural identity and human rights.
• The Significant Role of Words in lives today.
Based on these concepts, also being exposed to constant changes and uncertainties which living in this particular time and place has introduced to her life, she creates text-based works while putting the main emphasis on the idea of temporariness and ephemeral quality. To achieve this, she uses temporary materials such as soil, dust, and glass powder to create large scale floor installations directly on the floor with no binder to hold the materials in place, and then to leave them to exposed to different natural forces and human interactions in order to allow change, distortion, and ultimately disappearance over time.
Her creative act to challenge meaning, combined with temporariness, decomposition, and layering, leads us to the very edge of political concerns and issues in contemporary era, which ultimately leaves many feeling insecure, uncertain, and vulnerable.