© Amitis Motevalli

Amitis Motevalli grapples with personal history, political conflict, and cultural stereotypes to expose the nuanced reality of Islamic and Iranian identity. Her photographic installation at East Window Gallery in Boulder, Colorado combines two bodies of work, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Rebel and Jokes on Me: Stupid Muslim Joke.

Consisting of altered family snapshots and documentation of an interactive performance, the resulting collection of images reveals the uncomfortable beauty of confrontation. The artist’s body becomes a narrative vessel for transforming misconception into connection, expression, and revolution.

Is a person born a revolutionary?

Motevalli’s altered images of her childhood self adorned with balaclavas, weapons, and ammunition, explore this question. A young Motevelli in a plaid dress, blue vest, and polka dot tie–further accessorized with a drawn on ammunition belt–greets visitors at the entry to the gallery space. Her shadow’s form raises a rifle into the air, beneath a painting of Muhammad. She looks directly at the camera, mouth open as if caught in the middle of speaking, singing, or crying out.

© Amitis Motevalli

Documentation always has a bias, whether it is that of the photographer, the archivist, or the viewer. Motevalli reclaims and reinvents the historical narrative of rebellion in her images from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Rebel; revolutionary action first occurs at the individual scale and stems from personal histories. The intervention with bold marker lines communicates this phenomenon with graphic clarity.

A black and white photograph shows Motevalli as a baby donning a balaclava and holding a pistol, smiling and content. The scene is absurd, but also somehow totally natural. Whether rebellion is inherent to an individual’s personality or a product of the political environment into which one is born, Motevalli makes it clear that her own path was inevitable.

© Amitis Motevalli

© Amitis Motevalli

Her childhood activities, such as riding a pony, playing with a doll, enjoying the beach, still existed within the framework of an oppressive government. Rebels are often portrayed by the media as criminals and the average citizen believes this to be true, until the need for revolution becomes a slowly emerging reality in their own country. Motevalli’s images simply alter the record to expose the underlying truth.

Many artists turn to abstract metaphors when addressing complex issues, but Motevalli’s work leaves no room for mistakes about her intended message. Sometimes the literal approach is the most necessary, the most urgent, the most effective. The documentation images of her performance work, Jokes on Me:Stupid Muslim Joke, depict her own body plastered with stickers of Muslim jokes from the English-speaking internet. Slurs and racist comments abound in the digital space, brazenly typed out by people who would never dare to say them out loud to a person right in front of them.

© Amitis Motevalli

© Amitis Motevalli

Rather than responding herself, she asks the audience to write their responses directly onto her body. Stripped down to her underwear, Motevalli’s flesh is vulnerable to outside gazes and the participants’ scrawlings. But her relaxed expression and posture reveal no fear, merely an openness for interaction. When encountering a living, breathing human being with a unique personal history, would you communicate through assumptions and stereotypes? Or would you approach their story with kindness and curiosity? The public in this performance piece consists of mostly women and they appear to have chosen the latter.

Someone has written “LOVE” down the bridge of her nose. “You are beautiful” meanders across her jawline. The particular intimacy of the handwriting contrasts strikingly with the sterile violence of the printed stickers. And the relative anonymity of the digital world does lack intimacy, making it the ideal breeding ground for racist rhetoric, helmed by inaccurate and harmful media portrayals. Motevalli’s performance redirects this conversation about Muslims, imploring others to understand that they are more than just a vague concept in a distant land.

Courtesy of East Window

© Amitis Motevalli

Courtesy of East Window

The two bodies of work displayed in the same space reveal the complex duality of the artist’s body as both a target for racism and a tool for revolutionary action. Motevalli doesn’t get mired down by the hateful speech surrounding her homeland. Instead, wielding a brazen humor and a fluid presence, she takes hold of the viewer’s misconceptions and molds them into something more receptive to multiplicity.

Amitis Motevalli can’t represent an entire religion or region and she shouldn’t have to, but she does have an artist’s unique ability to edit and transform the narrative. Transformation, on both the individual and societal scale, can’t come without a complicated dose of violence and pain. Amitis Motevalli’s work reminds us that revolutionary action isn’t an impulsive choice or fun extracurricular, it comes out of a necessity for the survival of a people.

© Amitis Motevalli

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Rebel; Jokes on Me:Stupid Muslim Joke will be on view at East Window Gallery March 1-June 20, 2025.

4550 Broadway, STE C-3B2
Boulder, CO 80304

About the artist:

Amitis Motevalli was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to the US in 1977. In 1995 she received a BA from SFSU in Art with a minor in Women’s studies and in 1998 an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Her work as an artist incorporates a combination of near-eastern aesthetic with a western art education. Motevalli states, “Being an immigrant in the US shows in my work a duality of culture, both natural and learned. In all of my work, I create a dialogue that critiques dominant views of oppressed people and culture in general”. Her work in art education is with youth who share a similar duality in vision. Motevalli has been active in creating social change with her students on issues of civil rights through pedagogy or working with students and community to organize around issues that affect their quality of life and access to education. Amitis Motevalli is a recipient of the California Community Foundation Fellowship and the Visions of California Award. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, exhibiting art nationally and abroad as well as organizing to create an active and resistant cultural discourse through information exchange, either in art, pedagogy or organizing artists and educators.

Follow Amitis on Instagram: @amigeddon

About the gallery:

Founded in May 2020, East Window is an independent arts organization that supports and promotes diverse artistic practices and the ideas that surround them. Our resolve is to bring visibility to historically marginalized artists who exist in all communities of color, including Black, Indigenous, Asian, people who are LGBTQ+, Two-Spirit, Gender Non-Binary, and People with Disabilities and Chronic Illness. Our goal is to promote the art and culture of these under-recognized communities and provide a platform for people from all backgrounds to share their hearts and minds through exhibitions and public programming.

About the writer:
Paloma Jimenez (she/her) is an artist, writer, and teacher. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and has been featured in international publications. She received her BA from Vassar College and her MFA from Parsons School of Design.

Follow Paloma on Instagram: @paloma.rrose