The Chess Game

polymer clay sculpture | 6.75 x 5.25 x 2" | freestanding

Mahsa Farzi (b. 1992, Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian artist whose practice is rooted in the lived experience of displacement, fragmentation, and the instability of identity. Her work engages with rupture in formal, emotional, and political terms, not only as a subject but also as a method of making.

She graduated with an MFA from the University of British Columbia (2025) and holds an MFA in Painting from the Art University of Tehran (2021). She was awarded the Rising Star Award (2025) at the CICA Vancouver International Awards, the Joan Wright Hassell Prize in Visual Arts from UBC, and Best Thesis for her Master of Arts in Painting at the Art University of Tehran. In 2018, she was recognized as an outstanding student in painting at the Art University of Tehran.