IN her debut solo exhibition, Yasamin Khadembashi explores the complexities of growing up in Australia as a queer Iranian woman.
“Brown, hairy, smelling of Ghomreh Sabzi and garlic, learning early what it meant to stand out, to hide, and to hold pride all at once,” she says.
Her parents fled their homeland after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, but their path to freedom was dangerous and convoluted.
Unable to leave the country, her father had to do compulsory military service during the Iran–Iraq War (1980-88).
“He spent eighteen months in the war and survived, though many of his friends and fellow soldiers did not,” Khadembashi says.
“Those who returned often lived with immense trauma, and Iran later faced a widespread drug and opioid epidemic in the aftermath of the war.”
Meanwhile her mother was living under oppressive conditions: mandatory veiling, music banned for a year, and strict restrictions on clothes and appearance.
Eventually her father fled to Germany and they were married by proxy, a common practice for families escaping Iran.
Khadembashi is keen to dispel the stigma that all Muslim families are conservative and harmful towards their queer children.
• Yasamin Khadembashi with her thought-provoking artworks. Photo by Aaryn Bath
“This narrative is not only simplistic but deeply harmful,” she says.
“While I can only speak from my own experience, my family has always supported and loved me for who I am — including as a queer Iranian woman.”
She notes that countries like Iran had a significant queer history, but it has been “systematically erased” in Western and Southwest Asia and North Africa histories.
Particularly after European intervention in the Iran’s Qajar period, when Persian social norms shifted from more fluid sexuality toward rigid heteronormativity.
“Living at the intersection of queerness, Iranian identity, and Muslim heritage in the West often feels like living as a contradiction in the eyes of others,” she says.
“There is a persistent question imposed on bodies like mine: How can all of these identities exist at once?”
Dreaming in Farsi is Khadembashi trying to make sense of all this: a complex mix of grief, rage, love, survival and hope.
Despite the heavy themes, the art is vibrant, textured and full of bright colours.
Khadembashi painstakingly applied piped impasto oil paint embedded with synthetic eyelashes.
Highlights include a woman in a niqab with a bullseye on her chest.
Couched in swirling Persian patterns, it encapsulates the contradictory emotions surrounding her provenance.
“As a queer Iranian woman living in Australia, I am deeply aware of my relative safety and privilege compared to those living in Iran today,” she says.
“As we entered 2026, Iran erupted once again into mass protests driven by economic collapse, inflation, corruption and authoritarian theocratic rule.
“It weighs heavily on me knowing that women and queer people in Iran are still fighting for their lives and dignity.”
Large-scale heavily textured paintings are Khadembashi’s bread and butter, but she also works in sculpture, textiles and installation.
She’s influenced by “artists of colour” from the SWANA region, diasporic communities, and First Nations artists including Abdul Abdullah, Hoda Afshar, Hiba Schahbaz and Kubra Khademi.
She particularly drawn to artists who explore portraiture, history, identity and power.
“I’ve spent my life navigating the thresholds between cultures, languages, bodies and expectations,” Khadembashi says.
Dreaming in Farsi is at PS Art Space on Pakenham Street in Fremantle from January 16-31. See yasaminkhadembashi.com and psas.com.au.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK