Kymia Nawabi
2008 Swing Space Resident, 120 Broadway
Kymia Nawabi was born on December 1, 1980 in San Diego, CA and raised in Durham, NC. Nawabi is a first generation Iranian American. Her father, Ardavan Nawabi was Iranian, as her mother, Golnaz Nawabi, is part Iranian/Russian. Kymia became heavily interested in making art as early on as high school. She had her first show at the age of seventeen at Two Way Pull Records/Dr. Quang’s Gallery of Miscellanea. After high school Kymia went on to attend East Carolina University, College of Fine Arts, in Greenville, NC where she received her B.F.A. in drawing and painting in May, 2003. During college Kymia received many awards including the Ed Reep Painting Scholarship, the Tran and Marilyn Gordley Scholarship, and Outstanding Senior Award, presented by the Student Government Association. Having a strong desire to continue her studies, she accepted to attend University of Florida, College of Fine Arts, in Gainesville, Fl directly after receiving her Bachelor’s Degree. At UF, she had many new opportunities that she felt she executed with the utmost enthusiasm. Granted an assistantship for the duration of graduate school, she was first an assistant to Professors of Art and Artists: Richard Heipp, Lauren Garber and Arnold Mesches. She also taught three semesters of Perceptual Drawing and went on to become the Director of the Student Arts Juried Exhibition her last year in Florida. During graduate school (2004) Kymia was awarded as an emerging artist by Artspace, Raleigh, NC (with a solo exhibition in Gallery 2: shush!!!!) and the Gaspirilla Festival in Tampa, FL. Nawabi received her Master of Fine Arts degree in May of 2006. Her thesis show was entitled, NINCOMPOOP, and included 5 large-scale mixed media paper drawings, a drawing installation of her visual diary pages and a parade of miniature sculptures. Kymia currently lives in Astoria, Queens, NY, with artist Boyd Shropshire. Since having moved to NY in August of 2006, Nawabi has had three exhibitions: Home Away, at Space Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA, 2007, a real real worrier warrior, at Lump Gallery, Raleigh, NC, and NINCOMPOOP and Dwarfbaby, at Dead End Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2006. Furthermore, she has (home) studio visits set-up in the month of March with Amy Smith-Stewart, previous curator of PS 1 and Mary Boone Gallery, and David Gibson of Article Projects; and will be attending her first residency granted for the month of April 2007, at the Women’s Studio Workshop ceramics studio, in Rosendale, NY. Nawabi works for Color Me Mine as a ceramics studio assistant full-time, interns two days a week at EXIT ART and diligently continues her art making practices at her home. As a professional artist, Kymia Nawabi has intense artistic pursuits with the intent of continually creating/exhibiting her work and attending residencies around the world.
