Trained as a photographer, Shahbazi shoots images–including portraits, still lifes and landscapes–and often uses them as source material not only for photographs but also for paintings, billboards and handmade carpets. By altering the scale and transposing the imagery into a new medium or a style associated with another culture, she subverted viewers’ expectations and explored the complexity of identity.
For her project in The Curve, Shahbazi collaborated with a team of Iranian billboard painters, employing techniques and styles typically used for commercial advertising in her native country.