Artist: Mahsa Soroudi
Exhibition: Nature’s Cadence
Media: Succulents, plants
Website: https://www.mahsasoroudi.com/
Instagram: mahsasoroudi
Mahsa Soroudi is an Iranian born artist who grew up being surrounded with art. Growing up in Tehran, Iran she grew a passion for art and was always involved with art because of her father who is a painter and shares a passion for art. Mahsa has her BFA in Visual Communication and after getting married in Iran, Mahsa and her husband moved out to Malaysia for about a year where they both learned to speak English. They later moved to Southern California where she lives now. She mentioned that she had positive feelings towards her home country but she knows some people who would never go back. Her passion for art is shown through the way she speaks about her plants and the stories she tells behind them.
Nature’s Cadence included various succulent plants. One of the pieces she was showing had various little parts that looked like leaves. Each one was growing a little stem that looked like a succulent. Some were stagnant and weren’t growing anything but some had stems coming out of them. Some were green and some had pink roots growing out. Another piece was a longer succulent that originally had a dead or broken stem. At first Mahsa felt disappointed in seeing that there was no growth in her plant but suddenly it started to bloom. Once it started to grow, the stems made a downward, curved shape which gave the plant a personality.
As she was explaining, Mahsa mentioned how her plants in a way resembled her life as an immigrant. She came to the United States from Iran and started a new life here. Like her succulents, they were planted to grow and adapt to the environment they lived in. In the same way, Mahsa “planted” her life in Newport Beach and eventually became used to the environment. In one of her bigger pieces, the succulent wasn’t growing at first but she noticed that underneath the soil there was growth. This relates to her because even though she started over in a new place, she was still growing artistically and personally even if it didn’t seem like it. She also mentioned how her succulent managed to survive even if she didn’t water it sometimes. Mahsa’s life can connect with her succulent because her succulent overcame the drought overtime just as Mahsa did while settling in California.
Overall, I really enjoyed Mahsa Soroudi’s artwork as she was able to connect her succulents to her personal life. She seemed like a really genuine person who shared a true passion for her art. The interview with her was very interesting to watch and made me feel inspired to do something as meaningful as she did.
abbycal 