Today we’d like to introduce you to Siavash Jaraiedi.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My journey toward art was less like a decision and more like an inner, instinctive need or perhaps an unconditional acceptance of destiny. I vividly remember that from a very young age, I could feel the emotions of those around me with an intensity far beyond what was expected for my age. The sadness that weighed on others would deeply sadden me, and their joy would reflect within me. It is a trait that still stays with me.
As a child, I carried this deep sensitivity into a world that felt far too loud and unstable. I grew up during wartime, and everything around me seemed darker, heavier, and more dangerous than it should have been. To cope, I did what came naturally. I started making up stories. When there was no calm, I imagined one. When I felt afraid, I invented heroes who could carry the fear away and lead the story somewhere safe.
But the desire to blend story with form came later. I began shaping small characters out of modeling clay, giving each one a story. Every clay figure had its own traits, a job, a tale, a sorrow, or a love. Sometimes they were friends, and sometimes not, but they always lived together in peace. Eventually, I realized that through these little characters, I was building my own small world. A world without war.
Today, I am still doing the same thing. Especially in my recent works, I try to create a world filled with a shared sense of empathy. The only difference is that now I use more professional, lasting, and complex materials. My sculptures are, in fact, poems—not only written in words, but also expressed through form. But sometimes, the process is reversed, and I sculpt with words. I write poems that feel like building a sculpture from words. Or perhaps it is better to say that just as I arrange forms in space, I arrange words on the page to create a composition of meaning.
In 2022, I presented eighteen sculptures in this very style at an exhibition at Advocartsy Gallery in Los Angeles. Each piece was both a poem and a sculpture. The exhibition was a collection of eighteen poetic fragments, each embodied in a sculpture. Or perhaps, eighteen sculptures that had been composed as poems. It was as if a shared essence, an emotion, or a narrative, had been born in two different mediums, once as poetry, and once as sculpture.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Life as an artist is never a straightforward or easy path. From the very first step, you constantly have to prove that your presence, your perspective, and your very being are essential to society. While people easily understand the importance of a doctor, a lawyer, or even a mechanic, few truly believe that society also needs artists. Maybe someone does not want an empty wall in their home, but many are content with a cheap frame from a chain store. Although I’ve been luckier than many artists, it was still a challenge.
For me, this wasn’t the only challenge I faced. Migration brought its own weight, especially for someone like me, who feels the emotions of others so deeply that it becomes the source of what I create. This deep sense of empathy is both my greatest creative force and a wound I always carry with me. After I immigrated, the silence that surrounded me was unfamiliar and isolating, yet it also became a space where something new could begin to grow.
I entered a society that did not know me, and I did not know it either. Not only was its spoken language unfamiliar to me, but so was its emotional language. We knew little of each other, and that lack of understanding echoed through the days of my life like a long silence. For someone like me, someone who builds more than speaks and who writes more than talks, starting over inside that silence was both difficult and inspiring. Yet that same quiet and solitude gave rise to new layers within me, ones I might never have discovered had everything been easy. In that quiet, I came to know myself more deeply, more truthfully, and more vulnerably.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work is not just about creating. It is first about feeling, and then translating that feeling into form, into poetry, or into whatever language best expresses the truth at that moment. My artworks are poems not only in the body of words, but also on the cold surface of bronze, in the cracked textures of ceramic, or in any other form they may take.
I prefer to work with materials that, to me, resemble human beings. Strong, yet vulnerable, filled with hidden histories and unspoken words. Materials that seem to carry memory. Metals that have passed through fire and endured hours of sanding, yet show a mark with just a touch. Or ceramics that have come to the edge of melting and now carry their fragility and vulnerability with courage.
I also create contemporary jewelry, each piece rooted in a story. These are not just decorative objects, but wearable sculptures that carry meaning. Through these pieces, I aim to create art that moves with you, whispers to you, and becomes quietly part of your daily life.
My works are often an invitation to touch, to experience, and to understand more deeply. An invitation not just to see ourselves, but to truly see one another. To feel grief and joy not only within, but also in others.
One of my most personal projects is “1001 Fragile Faces,” a collection of handmade brooches in the shape of candies, crafted from glass and ceramic. Each brooch represents a child affected by war. With their sweet, colorful appearance, they are, in fact, a metaphor for the innocence of children in war. Beautiful, yet breakable.
All proceeds from this project go toward supporting these children. When someone orders a brooch through my website, they receive a randomly selected face, symbolizing their connection to the mission of helping children affected by war. Because the roots of war and vengeance must be healed somewhere. Healing the minds and hearts of children left behind by war is the first and most essential step toward peace. This project will be available for shipment starting September 21st of this year, the International Day of Peace.
Any big plans?
In addition to working toward creating a warm and calming space in Los Angeles, a studio for teaching and sculpting, which has certainly not been easy, I have also been quietly and carefully working in my small art atelier on a new exhibition, which for me is a very different kind of artistic experience.
I do not want to reveal everything about it just yet, because things may still change. I do not want to limit myself with words spoken too soon.
But I can share this. The project revolves around an imaginary being, one born from empathy. It was not created through noise but through a gentle whisper, formed through understanding and deep care for the suffering of others. In this being, there is no boundary between me and you. Anyone who comes close sees a part of themselves in it and feels a part of someone else within themselves. It carries stories that were never heard, emotions that were suppressed, and wishes that have been kept silent. It resembles everything, something like a mirror.
To me, the future is a place where empathy has been restored to life. Where people live together not out of fear, but out of love. A world without war. A place where differences are not a cause for division, but an opportunity for discovery, acceptance, and harmony. Restoring empathy is not a slogan. It is entirely possible, especially with the help of education and technology.
And I truly believe that art can play a vital role in this. Because an artist is, by nature, sensitive. If my art can contribute even the tiniest spark along this path, or stir someone’s mind, even for a moment, with a forgotten feeling of empathy, then I believe it has fulfilled its purpose. Art may not end wars, but it keeps the hope for peace alive in us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://siavashjaraiedi.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siavashjaraiedi/
- Other: https://jaraiedi.com
