Fables of Fire and Water

Stan State university Art Gallery is  thrilled to present exhibition Fables of Fire and Water by Shiva Ahmadi from October 16 - December 19, 2025. An opening reception will take place Thursday, November 6, from 6:00p.m.

Shiva Ahmadi (b. 1975) is a multidisciplinary artist born in Iran and based in Bay Area, CA.

Her work address issues of migration, war and brutality against marginalized people.

She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Manetti Shrem Museum in CA (2024), The Rubin Museum in New York City (2021), the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, CA (2017), the Asia Society Museum in New York City (2014), and the College of Wooster Art Museum in Wooster, OH (2012). In addition to holding regular solo exhibitions at galleries in NYC, LA, London and San Francisco, her works have been included in many curated museum group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Notable shows include the "Rising Sun" at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, (2023) "Being and Belonging" at the Ontario Museum of Arts in Toronto, Canada (2023) “Epic Iran” in  Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2023) “From Moment to Movement” at Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in Davis, CA (2022), “A Boundless Drop in A Boundless Ocean” Orlando Museum of Art in Orlando, Florida (2021), “Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet”, at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada (2021) “With Eyes Open” the Cranbrook Museum of Art in Michigan (2021), Catastrophe and the Power of Art”, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2019), “Revolution Generations”, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar (2019) among others.

Ahmadi’s work is part of permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the San Jose Museum of Arts; the Crocker Art Museum; the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Asia Society Museum in New York; the Manetti Shrem Museum in California; the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago; the Grey Art Museum in New York; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University; The Morgan Library and Museum in New York; the Farjam Collection in Dubai; the TDIC Corporate Collection in Abu Dhabi; and the private collection of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

Ahmadi has received several awards, such as the Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2016), the Kresge Artist Fellowship (2009), and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016). A monograph titled "Shiva Ahmadi" was published by Skira in Spring 2017. She is currently a professor of Art at University of California, Davis.

Fables of Fire and Water, features three animations by Shiva Ahmadi. While painting remains her primary medium, she pushes its boundaries through video animation, extending it into time and movement. Each animation is meticulously hand-painted, with characters, landscapes, and abstract forms transforming from static images into dynamic narratives that unfold across space and echo the oral traditions of storytelling.

Caption Information: "Marooned" Single-channel video animation with sound (handmade animation) Edition of 3
Collection of Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2021