Sheree Hovsepian (b. 1974, Isfahan, Iran) earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL in 2002, a dual BFA/BA from the University of Toledo, OH in 1999, and studied at the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland in 1998. Hovsepian has had recent solo and two-person exhibitions at Uffner & Liu, New York, NY (2022); Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY (2020); Higher Pictures Gallery, New York, NY(2019); Team Bungalow, Los Angeles, CA (2019); and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, IL (2018). Institutionally, Hovsepian has been included in group exhibitions at the Bemis Exhibition Center, Omaha, NE (2025); Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA (2025); Shah Garg Foundation, New York, NY (2023); Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY (2023); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (2023); International Center of Photography, New York, NY (2023); the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, Venice, Italy (2022); and the Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY (2020). Hovsepian is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bronx Museum, the Kormal Shah Collection, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. She currently lives and works in New York City. @shereehovsepian
When did you first fall in love with art and realize you wanted to be an artist? Initially, I came to art because I was drawn to beauty. I also loved the stories behind the paintings and art I would see when visiting museums on field trips. Making art was something I was naturally good at. When I was young, It was one of the only spaces in my life where I felt confidence and pride.
You have exciting new developments in your art. What themes or ideas are currently driving your work? I just opened an exhibition at Uffner & Liu with all new work. For the first time, I am using paint in my collages. I also made life-sized bronze sculptures. I will be exploring these new materials and methods for a while. I would like to push the scale of my sculptures larger. I hope I find an opportunity to take that on.
When someone encounters your work, what kind of emotional or intellectual response are you hoping to provoke? I am navigating the complexities of identity and subjectivity through the lens of embodiment, archival processes, and the interplay of the indexical and the unknown. My work is deeply informed by the dichotomy of the body as an archive—where the physical exists distinct from the psyche—allowing me to explore the physicality of experience and primordial desire.
Are there artists, thinkers, or performers you feel an affinity with, or would love to engage in conversation with? I love to read theory and embodied prose. I had to really train myself to focus to read these types of works after living in NYC for a while. I think living in NYC is terrible for fostering focus. I get alot out of reading when I connect to certain authors and the feelings or ideas they conjure within me can inspire my work.
I also find inspiration by looking at artists from the past in particular artists working with ideas around the body. Louise Bourgeois, Ana Mendieta, Clarice Lispector, Marguerite Duras, Prince, Roland Barthes, Lygia Clark, Walter Benjamin, Hélène Cixous, Marcel Duchamp, Mapplethorpe (he would have some good stories about NYC).
A great thing about living in New York City is…
It’s the best city in the USA. I try to be present for my community by going to see exhibitions and productions that they are involved in.
I am also on the board of Artists Space which is a nonporofit organization that was established 50 years ago to provide an alternative support structure for emerging artists. Today, they continue to support experimental and socially engaged art practices. I believe is very important to support artists working on the margins of the commercial gallery system.
I am also on the Arts Advisory Committee for Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York which is a nonporfit space dedicated to supporting emerging lens-based artists. Here, offer critiques and mentorship to their resident artists. This is something that allows me to give back to the community in a palpable way.
Who are teachers who have shaped how you approach artmaking today? I met Barbara DeGenevieve sometime in the late '90s, when she came as a visiting artist to my advanced photography class at the University of Toledo. I wanted to go to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Barbara was teaching as a core member of the photography program. At SAIC, Barbara was a force. In her classes, we took part in rigorous critiques, read Julia Kristeva, and talked about porn as art. Her own work was interested in challenging codes of censorship by pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable—centering the body as a source of pleasure, power, and agency.
She died in 2014. I often wonder, if she were still alive, what would she think of what is happening in the world today as the culture of feminism is often centered around victimhood and government rhetoric is stripping us of our agency. But I also think about how Barbara's influence lives on through the artists she mentored—those of us who push boundaries, challenge conventions, and expand the discourse in our own ways.
Sustainability in the art world is an important issue. Can you share a memory or reflection about the beauty and wonder of the natural world? Does being in nature inspire your art or your process? How do you draw inspiration from the natural world and how has it influence your visual language? Being in nature creates calm in my body and mind. My favorite place to be is on the beach out east on Long Island. Being on the edge of land, facing the ocean, allows me to be in touch with the natural world and ultimately the divine power that guides our being. I don’t consider myself a particularly spiritual person but being in nature amongst the beauty and purity of land and sea guides me to a more spiritual place, and I welcome that.
AI is changing everything - the way we see the world, creativity, art, our ideas of beauty and the way we communicate with each other and our imaginations. As someone who values the tactile, experiential side of making art, how do you see technology’s place in the creative process today? AI is part of human evolution. I believe there is a time and place for everything. We can seek out what we want in art, literature, music and film. Just because it is available doesn’t mean everyone will use it. It is up to the viewers and consumers to support what we like and what nourishes us.
Exploring ideas, art and the creative process connects me to…
the unknown, unknowable, primordial desire and fear.
