sion rife with symbolism in her dynamic paintings. Her disjointed
images and collage-like compositions suggest a Surrealist influ-
scenes and figures, juxtaposed to each other in incongruous relationships.
These paintings depict intensely personal scenes, the subject often being
pure emotion itself. Zandi, a psychotherapist and a painter, is fascinated
by human emotions and the distinction between the mind and the brain.
Her paintings represent the artist's struggle with questions about exis-
tence, death, religion, love, and suffering. Each raw emotion is rendered
Her painting style lushly relates the
passion of her subject through abun-
dant pigment and fluid lines. Zandi's
paintings explore the theme of trauma.
Her work chronicles the cycles of
birth, death, life and womanhood.
She is interested in deconstructing the
body, exposing the inherent falsity of
appearances. She divorces the body
from the mind on her canvases, depict-
ing the mind as far superior than the
physical. Her painting "Self-Portrait" is an example of the storytelling
adept, as she tells her viewer a
vivid story without words. The
subject of the painting is a glass
jar, in which a brain is being kept.
Super-imposed over the image of
the brain is a haunting view of the
artist's face, she gazes out at the
viewer with an enigmatic stare.
Dashes of blood-red paint swirl
around the painting, a staircase
drenched in vermilion color leads
to a pair of headless bodies, float-
ing at the top of this cage-like
psychic landscape. Through these
disjointed images, Zandi reveals a
moving vulnerability. Her style of
painting blends a realistic render-
ing of faces and bodies with a
surreal placement of these bodies
in space. The result is art that hits
the viewer on a visceral level. The
depth and texture of each canvas
gives full voice to the artist's skill,
while the nuanced color and fine-
ly-wrought details of her subject
bring her work to a new level of
expression. Shandiz Zandi has
degrees in Architectural Design
and Psychology. She has worked
as the CEO of her internation-
al design firm, a Professor of
art history and currently, as a
psychotherapist. She has been
painting for over twenty years
and sites her work in psychology
as a tremendous inspiration, as
her work is "deeply influenced
by her knowledge of human
development and functioning."
-Alison Rogers