Shideh Tami

Shideh Tami (b. 1962) is a self-taught artist who has always tried to reveal psychological complexities in her paintings. She depicts people's faces regardless of gender, religious, ethnic, and national characteristics, making it a means of self-discovering and reaching awareness.

Since childhood, Tami had a passion for literature and used to write poems. She was 21 years old when attended Aydin Aghdashloo's classes for a short time at her friend, Shahrokh Ghiasi's suggestion. Although Tami did not finish this course, her experience had a great impact on her artistic mindset and she got acquainted with artists of her generation such as Shohreh Mehran, Mohammad Hamzeh, Houman Mortazavi, and Mostafa Dashti. In 1987, following Aghdashloo's encouragement, Tami published her first book of poetry, "The Night's Navy Blue Veil". In 1990, she published three children's books, illustrated by Houman Mortazavi.

Tami was creating figurative paintings during these years and, due to Parvaneh Etemadi's endorsement, held her solo show in 1992 at Mansoureh Hosseini Gallery. In this show, Tami's self-portraits were presented, and since then, the human face and body have become the main theme of her paintings. Only in the mid-1990s, after the passing of her friend Shahrokh Ghiasi, Tami had completely removed the human figure from her works and painted empty chairs for two years.

Shideh Tami's works have been exhibited in many solo and group shows in Iran and other countries over the past three decades. In 1998 and 1999, she held two solo shows at the Association Art et Culture Pouya and Cité Internationale des Arts. Fereydoun Ave was one of the first people to collect Shideh Tami's works and put them on a solo show at Ave Gallery in 2007.

In 2016, a solo show of Tami's works entitled "Ebb and Flow" was held at the O Gallery, and the gallery displayed her work at Art Dubai. After her show entitled "Poetry in Painting", the O Gallery also presented the artist's paintings at Teer Art in 2018. Her biography including a selection of the artist's paintings, drawings, and mass paintings was published by O gallery in collaboration with Farhang Moaser Publication.