DAC is proud and honored to announce the Ahmad Shafaie Artist Support Fund. Established in memory of celebrated artist Ahmad Shafaie through the generosity of his family, this fund will provide support in the form of small grants to immigrant visual artists. Grant funds can be used to cover artists’ expenses in their mission to express and present their art to audiences in the SF Bay Area and beyond. Please consider donating to the Ahmad Shafaie Artist Support Fund in order to sustain this initiative and support visual artists.

Interested applicants, please submit a request and a member of our team will get back to you.

ABOUT AHMAD SHAFAIE(1946-2019)

Born in Yazd (Iran), Ahmad Shafaie studied Fine Arts at Tehran University and worked as the chief designer and architect for Iranian pavilions at international events such as the World Fair. Ahmad moved to the Bay Area in the 1990s and lived in Palo Alto with his beloved wife Mahvash, until he passed away in 2019. Ahmad's works are found in private collections and have been exhibited in Iran, the United States and Canada. Diaspora Arts Connection proudly presented an exhibition of Ahmad’s works in 2019.

Ahmad’s art–both painting and poetry–was a defining feature of his life for more than a half a century. He painted tirelessly, his paintings varying according to the feelings that defined his daily life; sometimes vibrant and fluid, sometimes dark and gloomy.

Ahmad’s paintings often use nature, particularly trees, and the human form to convey emotions from his own personal history and that of many Iranians. Loneliness and anxiety come through in Ahmad’s solitary trees, sparse landscapes and human forms in conflict. But often the prevailing themes of Ahmad’s works are hope and the interconnectedness of human beings, as conveyed by his repeated representation of Spring, love and human solidarity. Ahmad often reinforced the sentiments expressed in his paintings by accompanying them with poetry, either his own poems (such as the one inspiring the title of this exhibition) or those of major modern Iranian poets such as Siavash Kasrai, Fereydoon Moshiri, and Hamid Mosadegh.

Core to Ahmad and his work were a love for Iran and its people, and a conviction that better days await. Ahmad believed that art and artists, including in diaspora, must play an active role in bringing about this change. Ahmad strongly supported the work of Diaspora Arts Connection and benefited from it himself. In donating a selection of Ahmad’s works for the exhibition, Ahmad’s family hope to honor his wish to support immigrant artists; and to ensure that more people get to enjoy his art. “Art should be seen on walls, not in closets” as Ahmad would often say with his trademark smile!

Recipients of the Ahmad Shafaie Artist Support Fund

• Marjan Najafi