Biography
Asma Salehi was born in Kabul Afghanistan. Her father vanished in 1979. Without any success her family searched for him for three years. She and her family escaped to Pakistan for their safety in 1982. Two years later, gaining asylum entry visa to United States, they resided in Northern California.
Asma Salehi discovered her artistic talent at Diablo Valley College in 1991 while taking an elective Art class. Despite many life challenges, she aggressively pursued her art education. In 1999 she received her Bachelors of Arts, from Queens College, New York, concentrating in Graphic Design, Fine Arts and Illustration.
She opened Magnolia Design Studio, event planning and Gallery studio in Huntington, New York. As an event planner and gallery owner she accomplished many successful art exhibits for local artists and created events for local community. There she started her abstract, expressive, mix medium series “Woman Around the World,” in 1997 and completed in 2010. This series is about the value of women in modern society. She expresses women facing poverty, hunger, sexual exploitation, diseases without medical help, arrange marriages, prejudice and many more issues they are facing. The abstract bold shapes and expressive lines keep the viewers interest to guess what country is illustrated in the paintings. Her strong pour of emotions in the paintings reveals her compassion towards the issues she wants to illustrate.
Moving from New York to California in 2006 helped her regain her Artistic route. In 2010 her first book was published, Buzaak Chinie, (The Porcelain Goat), a traditional folk tale from Afghanistan. It's a cautionary tale about not opening the door for strangers. Asma is one of a very small number of Western-educated Afghan-American women writers and artists to step up and re-tell not only this traditional children's story and commit it to print, but to really try and get the audience to think of the Afghan people and not just the region as a war zone. In this era of computer-generated art, Salehi’s artwork pays homage to the traditional, hand-drawn and hand-painted illustrated children's storybooks that we all remember.
She had a Solo Art Exhibit in SOMArts, San Francisco, August 2010, featuring “Behind the Burka, I.” This series is dedicated to women in Afghanistan. Her use of strong hues and expressive surliest style, she reveals that wearing the garment Burka is not the only problem women are facing. The mortality rate of children still remains high. Lack of institutions for education for men and women and children, lack of hospitals, loss of husbands and many other issues confront Afghan women everyday. Asma Salehi’s primary mission as an artist is to provide visual awareness to help create voice for women and children around the world under oppression.
She continued her education in Academy of Arts University to gaining MFA, concentrating in painting. In Academy of Arts, she created her recent body of work, “Behind the Burka II.” Using still life to explore the dogma Afghan woman endure. Painting is her journey and diary of her life.
