CV
Born in Tehran, Iran. Works and lives in USA
Education
MFA 2004 Imaging and Digital Arts, UMBC, Baltimore, MD
MFA 1999 Painting, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
BA 1993 Painting, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Solo Exhibitions
2025 Hadieh Shafie Paper Works, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA
2022 Within These Pages, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2015 Surfaced: Drawings, New York University, Abu Dhabi Center, NY Surfaced, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, NY
2011 Ketabeh Eshgh (Book of Love), Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2011 Ketab (Book), XVA Gallery, Dubai UAE
2011 Sweet Turning of the Page, Morton Fine Art, Washington D.C.
2009 Paper Pattern Color Culture, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Group Exhibitions
2025 Strand for Women, Atelier Jolie, NYC
2024 ECO(ED) VISIONS, The Mine, Dubai
2024 Falling into language, Contemporary Craft, Los Angeles, CA
2024 DOMINION at Arts West Gallery, University of Melbourne, Australia
2024 ART IRAN: Falling into Language, Craft Contemporary Los Angeles, CA
2023 Another Birth, The Mine, Dubai, UAE
2023 Conjuring Flames, Arsenal Contemporary, New York, NY
2021 Soul Fury, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia
2021 She Says, Women, Words & Power, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, VA
2020 “I open my eyes and see myself under a tree laden with fruit that I cannot name.” Center for Book Art, New York, NY
2018 The Shapes of Birds: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island
2018 Long,Winding Journeys: Contemporary Art and the Islamic Tradition, Katonah Museum of Art, New York, NY
2018 Holograph: Women on Paper, The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
2016 Contemporary Art of the Middle East, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
2016 Enduring Reasons Why, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2014 Paper Please! Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2014 Artist in Exile: Creativity, Activism, and the Diasporic Experiences. John’s University, New York, NY
2014 Persepolis: Word & Image, The William Benton Museum of Art, Connecticut, CA
2013 CALLIGRAFFITI: 1984-2013, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, NY
2013 Spectra, San Diego State University Downtown Gallery, San Diego, CA
2013 The Space Between: Contemporary perspectives on tradition and society, Middle East Center for the Arts (MECA), Jersey City, NJ
2013 Jameel Prize Exhibition (touring exhibition), Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, CA
2013 Art 13 London, Galerie Kashya Hildebrand, Zurich, SW
2012 UNCHARTED: Works on Paper, Cain Schulte Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 20 in 2012 Vision Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2012 Rock, Paper, Scissors Leila Heller Gallery, New York, NY
2012 The Next Generation, Galerie Kashya Hildebrand, Zurich, SW
2012 Jameel Prize Exhibition, Institute du Monde Arabe, Paris, France
2012 USA Invitational Art Exhibition, Conley Art Gallery USC Fresno, California, CA
2012 Jameel Prize Exhibition, Casa Arabe, Madrid, Spain
2011 Jameel Prize, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
2011 Pulse Art Fair, New York, NY Select: Washington Project for the Arts, Washington D.C.
2010 Ritual: Form, Script and Gesture, A Pop Up Project, Morton Fine Art, Washington D.C.
2011 More of the best is yet to come, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2011 Sondheim Prize, Semi-Finalist Exhibition, MICA, Baltimore, MD
2011 Gallery Artists Group Show, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Public Collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
The British Museum, London, UK
The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Georgia
The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL
The Farjam Collection, Dubai, UAE
Bank of America, Corporate Collection, North Carolina
Salsali Private Museum, Dubai, UAE
Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Nebraska Los Angeles
County Museum of Art (LACMA)
The Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts
Princeton Museum of Art, Princeton, NJ
Awards and Fellowships
2024 Delfina Foundation Research Fellowship
2017 Nominated for Anonymous Was A Woman
2014 Alumni Award, University of Maryland
2012 The Space Program, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, Brooklyn, NY
2011 Jameel Prize, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (Shortlisted)
2010 Franz & Virginia Bader Fund, Washington D.C.
2010 Individual Artist Grant, Maryland State Arts Council
2009 Mary Sawyers Baker Award, William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund
2008 Individual Artist Grant, Maryland State Arts Council
Hadieh Shafie
Hadieh Shafie’s practice is a process-driven contemplation that uses ink, paint, and paper as material for works that abstract text into form, evoking different optical perspectives. Her reliefs comprise circular or cone-shaped scrolls inscribed with Farsi poetry and her own writing in acts of concealment, fragmentation, and distortion. Performing the gesture of masking language through repetitive movement, Shafie’s work defies clean categorizations, situating itself between the two-dimensional and threedimensional plane and generating diverse fields of vision. Her visual language, a form of mark-making, is multi-layered and arises from a profound understanding of words as an energetic charge, color as emotion, and repetition as a kind of spiritual practice. Shafie’s work has been acquired by several institutional collections including The British Museum; Brooklyn Museum; The Columbus Museum; The Farjam Collection; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Princeton University Art Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Sheldon Museum of Art; and The Victoria and Albert Museum. Shafie holds an MFA in imaging and digital arts from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She was awarded the Delfina residency (2025), nominated for the Anonymous Was A Woman Prize in 2017, and shortlisted for the Jameel Prize in 2011. She was an awardee of the 2012 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program. She is the recipient of grants from the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund (2011), the Mary Sawyers Baker Award from the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund (2009), and the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant (2008).