Pantea Karimi

Pantea Karimi is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Jose, California. She worked and studied in Iran and the UK before settling in the US in 2005. Since 2014, her work has been focused on the interconnectivity of art and science by exploring select historical objects and scientific manuscripts of medicinal botany and mathematics from Iran, Arab regions, and Europe. Growing up in post-revolutionary Iran and later emigrating to the UK and then the US, her life and sensibilities have been intensely influenced by war, religion, and politics. Utilizing multimedia and balancing harmony and tension, Karimi creates syncretic imagery and narratives to claim female agency and highlight her cultural heritage as it intertwines with geopolitical tensions. Her work includes installations, virtual reality, three-dimensional objects, video, animation, sound, print, and drawing.

Karimi is a 2024 City of San Jose Creative Ambassador, a 2023 Kala Art Institute Honoree, and a 2019 Silicon Valley Artist Laureate. She is the recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant (2022), City of San Jose Arts and Cultural Exchange Grant (2019) and Artist Residencies at MASS MoCA (2022 and 2024), Santa Fe Art Institute (2024), University of California San Francisco Library (2021-2022) and Kala Art Institute Fellowship (2017). Karimi’s works have been exhibited in exhibitions in Iran, Algeria, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, the UK, and the United States. KQED Arts & Culture published an article on Karimi’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom work followed by a live interview on KQED Forum, aired on April 26, 2023.