Iranian-American artist · abstract expressionism

Helen
Arjmandi

Surface holds what memory cannot.

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Cracked, burned abstract surface in black, deep red, and traces of gold.

Wounds, Rupture
& Survival

Material as testimony

A practice of cracked, burned, and layered surfaces—where fracture becomes memory and memory becomes testimony. Beauty and pain held within the same breath.

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Abstraction with a pale, figure-like form seen from behind within cobalt and crimson fields.
Where No One Could Follow
Vertical streaks of blue, red, gold and green dissolving across a wide field.
Fading in Both Worlds

Persian Illumination
Reimagined

Centuries of Persian illumination, calligraphy, and sacred geometry—woodburned, engraved, and gilded into large-scale contemporary surfaces.

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Healing Mother Earth — a circular gilded medallion of Persian illumination in blue, gold, and crimson on wood.
Healing Mother Earth
An autumn trail through New England woodland, fence line and fallen leaves.
Connecticut · New England

Connecticut ·
New England

Rooted in place—the light, the seasons, and the quiet landscapes of the region I now call home shape the surfaces I make.

Circular wooden medallion with mirror-inlay Persian sacred geometry in gold and copper.

Geometric Art

Persian sacred geometry and biomorphic pattern—woodburned, engraved, and inlaid with mirror.

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A blue jay perched in winter light, photographed from behind.

Photography

Nature and abstraction, kept as a separate, quieter portfolio.

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The artist

On making

Helen Arjmandi is an Iranian-American artist and photographer who works across two long-held disciplines: the Persian arts of calligraphy, Tazhib, and mixed-media illumination, and a contemporary abstract expressionism.

Her paintings are made to be felt before they are read—an immediate, visceral recognition that asks for no explanation, holding layers that unravel only afterward. Those layers are physical: dense mixed-media surfaces built up and burned, cracked and broken down, until the work carries the record of its own making.

Its recurring concerns are memory, rupture, endurance, and what remains after damage.

For spaces

Placement & commission

Original works and commissions suited to considered placement—galleries, institutions, and architectural settings. The practice spans intimate panels to large wood, gilded, and modular mirror-inlay surfaces that can scale to a wall.

Recent Exhibition: The Arts at Yale Health, 2022–2023 · Studio in Connecticut