As part of programming for Made by Hand / Born Digital (on view until August 25), this free flowing conversation between Yassi Mazandi and James Glisson will cover her explorations with new technology, including NFTs, and her tendency to work with traditional mediums, like painting and ceramics, against the grain, especially her tendency, as she puts it, “to things the wrong way.”

Yassi Mazandi was born in Tehran, Iran, raised in Great Britain and lives and works in Los Angeles. She describes nature and her reaction to it, both conscious and subconscious, as the driving forces behind her art. She sculpts in porcelain, clay and bronze, and also creates works on paper and canvas. In 2019, she completed her first video artwork and, in 2021, her first AR artwork. Many of Yassi’s works in various non-porcelain media (e.g. paper, canvas, and video) are what she calls Born-Porcelain™, derived from X-rays of her porcelain sculptures.

She was in the first group selected by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for its Artist in Residence program on Captiva Island in Florida. Her first museum installation, Language of the Birds, (a kinetic work of 100 suspended bronze bird sculptures) debuted in 2022 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art and will be on display there through June 2024. Her art is in international public and private collections including Cleveland Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and University of California.