Hadi Hazavei is an artist, scientist, educator, and scholar, whose work spans across several decades, countries, and cultural contexts. His artistic practice has engaged in a number media and aesthetic traditions, from Persian calligraphy, carpet-weaving, and folk art, to the neo-traditionalism of Iran’s Saqqakhaneh School, and Euro-American Abstract Expressionism. In the 1970’s Hazavei’s creative influences drew from his close ties with leading figures in Iran’s burgeoning art scene, including Akbar Sadeghi, Ali Asghar Mohtaj, Ghobad Shiva, Syrus Malek, Nicky Nodjoumi, Abbas Kiarostami, Nahid Haghighat, Farshid Mesghali, and others. Renowned filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami noted that the forms of Hazavei’s work weave together, while external constraints fall away. This holds true to the artist’s creative practice as much as his life. Hazavei left Iran after nearly a decade of teaching, to travel and spend time in Europe, South America, and the United States. He continued to make art throughout his travels, incorporating elements of diverse art historical conventions and cultural motifs into his innovative practice.
A dedicated arts educator and scholar, he completed a PhD in Art Education at Columbia University in 1975, before serving as the Head of Art Education at Tehran’s Negarestan Museum between 1977–78.
Hazavei has since settled in New York City, where he conducted postdoctoral research in Museum Studies at New York University until 1989. He has authored numerous books on art and education. He has exhibited his work and organized dozens of exhibitions internationally, and produced murals for towns throughout the United States and in his early home in Aradan, Iran.
His recent solo and group exhibitions include:
- Shirin Gallery, Tehran, 2015
- Shirin Gallery NYC, 2016
- Shirin Gallery, Art Dubi, 2017
- Earth, Fire, and Water, at White Wall Space, NYC, 2019
