Shirazeh Houshiary was born in Iran in 1955. Having moved to London in the early 1970’s Houshiary graduated from the Chelsea School of Art in 1979 emerging with a group of artist that included Anish Kapoor and Richard Deacon. In Europe she is well known for her sculptures in which she seeks to investigate spiritual principles and abstract forms. In her first solo exhibition in New York at Lehmann Maupin gallery in 1999 she included paintings that explored her interest in Sufism and the 13th Century mystic poet Jalal al-Din Rumi. The calligraphy was implemented in graphite and repeatedly laced into the luminous surfaces.