Kayla Mohammadi

About the Artist

Kayla Mohammadi received her BFA in 1998 from the University of Washington in Seattle and her MFA in 2002 from Boston University. Currently she is a Lecturer in Fine Arts at Massachusetts College of Arts. She has been a visiting artist and lecturer at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA; St. Mary's College in Maryland; UMass Boston; Northeastern University; and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. Awards include: The 2008 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for painters, The Dedalus Foundation Award for 2008, The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant for 2006, Blanche E. Coleman Award for 2004, the Constantin Alajalov Scholarship, and Vermont Studio School Fellowship in 2001. She was a juror for the 2009 Boston Young Contemporary Exhibition and the 2009 Rhode Island Council for the Arts Award. Working from observation ? landscape, interior, or still life ? Kayla Mohammadi seeks visual translation rather than literal portrayal in her paintings. Influenced by her dual Finnish and Persian heritage, her work seeks the unexpected place we encounter through sudden, fresh juxtapositions of form and color. In Mohammadi's paintings, memory, formal elements, and observation are competing energies that coalesce, asking us familiar questions: Can I walk into this space? Do I want to? Am I standing on solid ground, being pushed away?