Shahryar Amiri was born in Tehran and raised in Ahvaz, Iran. His family moved to Austin, Texas in 1974 where he completed high school and university. Shahryar received a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Urban Planning, both from the University of Texas. He worked for ten years as an Urban Designer in Austin, Las Vegas and Los Angeles before switching over to graphic arts.

In June 2005 Shahryar premiered his digital artwork, 2001 Knights: A Magic Shadow Show in Santa Monica, California. These emotion-filled compositions are results of three decades of photography, poetry and imagery.

Shahryar Amiri has lived in Los Angeles since 1988 and currently works independently through his graphic arts business, Xerxes Studio that he started in 1993.

 

• • •

 

"In 2001, when I began creating my compositions, I never intended to share them with anyone. I expressed my thoughts, memorialized love, and resolved conflict.

As I created each one, I looked back on my life and realized that everything was inevitable — just like steps on a journey that led me to my present reality.

Despite the solitude in which I created my compositions, there is a universality that lends itself to every viewer since everything here has been seen or felt before. These emotions are a part of everyone’s world simply brought together in the way I see them. Hopefully, these familiar images combined in unfamiliar ways will encourage one to step into a world, which perhaps, will inspire to love again and again without end and show that the heart cannot be broken but instead stretches to take-in more of what life gives."

"These compositions are dedicated to every one of my inspirations."