Hedi Anderson

Artist Statement

I was born and raised in Iran, where being a woman meant having your rights decided for you, not something you got to negotiate or push back on. On top of that, my own family didn't support my love of art. Studying it, let alone building a career around it, wasn't really on the table for me growing up.

I moved to the US when I was 30, after falling in love with an American. That meant leaving everything I knew and starting over somewhere completely unfamiliar. It wasn't easy. There were real struggles: feeling out of place, having to rebuild a sense of who I was, missing home in ways that are hard to explain to people who haven't lived it. I haven't been back for 11 years now, and one of the hardest parts has been missing my nephews growing up, knowing them only through photos and video calls instead of in person. But through all of that, I grew. I found people, experiences, and a version of myself I don't think I would've found otherwise.

For most of my life, art was the thing I got to after everything else was taken care of. It was never allowed to be the priority. Now, for the first time, I'm changing that. I'm building a life where art comes first, where my creative work isn't squeezed into whatever time is left over, but is actually the center of what I do and who I am.