Reza Derakhshani (born 1952) is a painter and musician who has achieved a unique expression in his paintings by combining traditional Iranian art with Western abstract art. Reza Derakhshani’s works can be considered a contemporary language of Iranian painting.
Reza Derakhshani was born in Semnan. He emerged in the art world at a young age and held his first solo exhibitions of his works in the Qandriz and Seyhoun halls of Tehran in the early 1950s. Derakhshani studied visual arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and was a student of professors such as Hannibal Al-Khas, Marco Grigorian, and Mohsen Vaziri Moghadam. He went to the Pasadena School of Art in California to continue his studies, and after teaching at the University of Tehran for a while, he emigrated to the United States and later to Europe.
Reza Derakhshani’s paintings are often presented in large sizes, with pure colors and shiny surfaces such as gold or silver leaf. In his works, Reza Derakhshani has successfully incorporated the symbols and figurative elements of Iranian art into a context of abstract art. The visual elements and characteristics of Reza Derakhshani’s works are considered to be influenced by Western neo-expressionist and abstract art as much as they are derived from traditional Iranian art.