Exhibition - Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi: Here the Waving Flag. Here the Other World

MoCA Arlington presents Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi: Here the waving flag. Here the other world., the first major museum exhibition to survey the work of Iranian-American painter Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi.

Over the last fifteen years, Ilchi has cultivated a unique painting practice that merges the conventions and techniques of Western abstraction with the visual language of Persian art and architecture. The complexity and distinctiveness of Ilchi’s work comes from her commitment to material exploration, her deep engagement with art history, and the incorporation of her unique personal history. Ilchi brings new energy and perspectives to material and thematic traditions from throughout art history, including the practice of abstraction and the role of the sublime in contemporary art.

Throughout her work, Ilchi considers the tensions she feels as an immigrant and the conflicts that have shaped the relationship between the United States and Iran. Her early work draws on her experience growing up in Iran in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, under the Islamic Republic’s ongoing repression of women and suppression of dissent. More recently, her work engages aesthetic influences from 19th century landscape painting to consider the possibilities of the sublime in the 21st century.

Ilchi has developed a singular vision, grounded in material proficiency and nourished through a uniquely poetic visual language. Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi: Here the waving flag. Here the other world. will be the first presentation of Ilchi’s work that highlights the full breadth of her practice, bringing together artwork from the last fifteen years.

Here the waving flag. Here the other world. is generously supported by an anonymous donor, Cathy and Ernie Abbott, Philip Barlow and Lisa Gilotty, Liz Georges, and the Georges Family Foundation.

The exhibition is organized by Blair Murphy, MoCA Arlington’s Senior Curator + Director of Exhibitions.

About the Artist
Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi (born Tehran, Iran, 1981) is an Iranian-American artist whose creative practice is a navigation of her multifaceted experiences as an immigrant. Ilchi’s paintings provide a space where her two disparate histories come together to reflect on cultural traditions and notions of belonging. By combining conventions of Western abstraction with conventions of Persian art, Ilchi explores contradictory painting processes and the ways in which they can be melded into a hybrid visual language. These pictorial clashes echo the erasure and distortion of cultural identities, evoking allegories of intrusion and invasion and moving beyond the personal to reference contemporary and historical interference.

Ilchi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1981. Since immigrating to the United States at eighteen she has lived and worked in the Washington, DC metro area. Ilchi received an MFA in studio art from American University in 2011 and a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in 2006. She was a resident artist at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington from 2012 to 2018.

Ilchi has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally. Her work is in private and public collections including The Phillips Collection, The Federal Reserve Board, The Microsoft Art Collection, the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, and the Love, Luck & Faith Foundation.

She served as the McMillan Stewart Endowed Chair in Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2023-2024 and is the recipient of the Belle Foundation for Cultural Development Individual Grant, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellowship, VisArts Studio Fellowship, Charm City Fellowship, Zeta Orionis Painting Fellowship, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Painting, and the Bethesda Painting Award.

Her work has been featured in many publications including The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Art Papers, Washington City Paper, and New American Paintings. Ilchi has attended residencies at the Ucross Foundation, Millay Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Jentel Foundation, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Playa Summer Lake, Monson Arts and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.