LEYLA MODIRZADEH
  • ABOUT
    • Current projects
    • CV / ACTING RESUME
    • Interviews
  • ACTING
    • CLIPS
    • Reviews
  • DIRECTING
    • Documentary Theatre
    • No Exit
    • Love and Information
    • The Overcoat
    • Hot Mess
    • Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind
  • ART
  • FILM
  • TEACHING
    • Publications
    • Syllabi
    • BIPOC Playwrights Project
After getting my second MFA, this time in Visual Arts: New Forms from Pratt Institute, I began exploring art quilts, illustration, animation, installations and film. My artwork has been exhibited at Schafler Gallery, Toy Theatre Exhibits, Great Small Works, Art in General, Galapagos Art Space, NYC, and in an animated segment for the film “The Pink House.”  Artist residencies include The Vermont Studio Center and Wildacres Artist Residency.
DRAWINGS
Picture
Everyday Oddities: An illustrated Year 
by Leyla Modirzadeh 

​ Everyday Oddities​ is a witty visual diary depicting everyday moments through a dreamlike, at times irreverent, lens. Brimming with bright hand-drawn illustrations that explore a range of emotions from childlike playfulness to painful reality, this collection of unusual drawings, cartoons, and haikus celebrates life in all its quirky glory. On each page, Everyday Oddities invites readers to tease the wonder from their days and enter into Leyla’s off-kilter, idiosyncratic world.

Please click here to order: Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

“Like a kaleidoscopic tin of curiously strong mints for the imagination . . . Delightful!” 
—Dr. Bryan Smyth, author of Merleau-Ponty’s Existential Phenomenology and the Realization of Philosophy 
 
“Leyla Modirzadeh's work is imaginative, witty, and colorful, with a view of the world all her own . . . This book of art is a breath of fresh air.” 
—Ping Chong, playwright, theater director, and video artist 

Leyla Modirzadeh’s Everyday Oddities stops time with elegant imaginaries everyday magic, and intermittent disquiet." 
—Dr. Paul Austerlitz, author of Jazz Consciousness: Music, Race, and Humanity
Maryam & Mehri
Rachel's Birthday
Ohlone Cafe
Rockridge BART Station
Library, I-House, UC Berkeley
Courtyard, I-House, UC Berkeley
Click here for more drawings

INSTALLATIONS
In July 2023,  I created an interactive immersive installation called "Heartbreak Hang" in Spoleto, Italy.
Viewers were invited to write their losses and heart breaks on pieces paper which were then attached to red twine weighted down by stones. The wind moved them while Abby Lincoln's "Throw It Away" played. 
Picture
MIXED MEDIA
In the spring of 2023, Eve Ensler of Vagina Monologues fame, commissioned me to create a giant Vagina Gate for her guests to pass through for her 70th birthday gala. Here are some photos as the work progressed. The blue door was serving as the "G" spot, and the little light up bell under the pink lily folds was a stand-in for..well...I think it's pretty self explanatory.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
ART QUILTS
Mes Années (My Years), mixed media art quilt, hand dyed silk and typewritten silk pages, 90 inches high, 72 inches wide
From the 4 part series: Mes Années, Mes Visages, Mes Vêtements, Mes Voyages (“My Years, My Faces, My Clothes, My Places”)
  • ABOUT
    • Current projects
    • CV / ACTING RESUME
    • Interviews
  • ACTING
    • CLIPS
    • Reviews
  • DIRECTING
    • Documentary Theatre
    • No Exit
    • Love and Information
    • The Overcoat
    • Hot Mess
    • Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind
  • ART
  • FILM
  • TEACHING
    • Publications
    • Syllabi
    • BIPOC Playwrights Project