“Light activates our sense of the sacred”

Afruz Amighi (b 1974, Iran) completed her BA in political science at Barnard College at Columbia University, before going on to complete her MFA at New York University. Amighi's large scale installations, based on the interplay between light and shadow, have been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East. She is the inaugural recipient of the Jameel Prize for Middle Eastern Contemporary art, awarded by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2009.

In 2011, Amighi was the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in sculpture and in 2013 her work was commissioned for the 55th Venice Biennale. Her installations have been exhibited in sculpture parks and museums throughout the United States and in 2018 she had her first large scale museum exhibition at the Frist Art Museum.