About
The Artist, the Practice, and the Origins of Florescencism
Lida Sherafatmand's work joins painting, healing, and public meaning into one long artistic practice. This page offers the biographical and philosophical context behind that continuity.
Lida Sherafatmand is a fine artist whose art path started at 3 years of age in 1980. Born in Iran, Lida lived life circumstances of war, revolution, and persecution, later on as refugee, statelessness, loss of wealth and poverty. Due to those experiences, she feels a responsibility in her artworks to contribute to her surroundings.
At the age of 16, she was already being commissioned to paint portraits of people, and by 19 years old, she started exhibitions. In 2003, she enrolled at university to study International Relations and have more insights about wars and problems in society.
In 2016, she coined an artistic concept 'florescencism' which carries a double meaning: flowers being the main physical subject in her painting and flowering as a metaphor used in many cultures and languages to symbolize the flourishing of an individual or a civilization.
After finishing her M.A. in International Relations, Lida has delivered public talks on the academic research behind her art at conferences and academic institutes including the Roerich Family Museum and Institute in St Petersburg, The London School of Economics and Political Science, the Radcliffe Harvard University, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Rome.
Lida's paintings, articles and poems have been widely published, including by UN, UNESCO, Amnesty International, a number of art journals, and other institutes. One notable piece of her writing is the Humanitarian Art Manifesto, translated to seven languages, published on various newspapers and publications. Her artworks have been quoted and reviewed in art history academic dissertations and journals of social science. Moreover, Lida has been conferred numerous awards; Fellowship Artist in Residence at Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study (Germany), Woman Art Award by Europe Art Awards and MUSA International Art Space in 2017, Milan International Art Award 2017 (Italy), selected as Jury Member for Children Van Gogh Art Competition in China, among others.
Today she has exhibited in over 20 countries including 60 collective shows, 25 solo exhibitions, and two official stamps have been printed from her paintings in Liechtenstein and China.
As quoted in an interview with The Guardian, her motto is: "The more I hear violent news, the more I paint gentle flowers."
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