​Hushidar Mortezaie was born in Tehran and immigrated to the Bay Area in 1975. He moved to NYC in 1994 for 10 years and now resides in California, living between Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Mortezaie’s discourse is a mixed media of collage, painting, illustration, installation art, and primarily fashion. His use of pattern, ornamentation, and the romantic plays with the political critique and pop culture satire of celebrity, branding, and mass consumption in his work. Celebrating and negating simultaneously reflects the absurdity and uncertainty of the 21st century with humor, camp, fantasy, and optimism...in Mortezaie's universe everything has beauty...everything. Much of his past work draws upon his Iranian heritage, which goes far past identity art, gallery and fashion systems, and orientalism, into a true love and hope for a nation and it's people. The children of the Iranian Renaissance who challenge the system daily through style and self expression are a life long inspiration and as themes and manifestos play out and in, that love remains. His focus in defying convention through the use of stereotype as armor, ornamentation, and packaging are constants that have evolved but are mainstays in his representational and decorative conceptual art. During the nineties, Mortezaie’s role as a buyer for Patricia Field helped lead to the Rave and Japanese Anime phenomenon in the U.S , with its Hello Kitty repercussions and virtual anime effects that reverberate today.His collaboration with Michael Sears in their NYC boutique gallery, Sears and Robot, was a pop pun on American commercial retail corporations that translated popular culture into pop couture fashion and art. Transitioning into their Michael and Hushi collection,these works spanned from a Ronald McDonald pastiche worn by supermodel Linda Evangelista in Italian Vogue to Iranian slogan and Persian miniature hand painted high fashion worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City; to porn collage print tops on Brad Pitt in the motion picture Fight Club. During the nineties, Mortezaie’s role as a buyer for Patricia Field helped lead to the Rave and Japanese Anime phenomenon in the U.S , with its Hello Kitty repercussions and virtual anime effects that reverberate today.His collaboration with Michael Sears in their NYC boutique gallery, Sears and Robot, was a pop pun on American commercial retail corporations that translated popular culture into pop couture fashion and art. Transitioning into their Michael and Hushi collection,these works spanned from a Ronald McDonald pastiche worn by supermodel Linda Evangelista in Italian Vogue to Iranian slogan and Persian miniature hand painted high fashion worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City; to porn collage print tops on Brad Pitt in the motion picture Fight Club. Singers such as Madonna, Britney Spears, and Beyonce transferred his visual messages to the masses. Hushidar’s work prompted the rise of Iranian calligraphy on textiles and Middle Eastern style in global fashion through his pioneer celebration of his heritage at a time when most hid their identity in a post 9/11 world filled with prejudice. With drawing and painting as his first passion,Hushidar migrated from the runway to the gallery to show his work.Selections of his work include “Welcome” at the Kashya Hildebrand gallery in NYC curated by Farhad Moshiri in March 2005; a multi-media study of style as empowerment among Iranian youth titled “75%” for Bidoun magazine. His homage to the valiant youth of the Green movement inspired him to create, a conceptual chic boutique at LA’s Morono Kiang Gallery in September 2009 resulting in an interview with Madeleine Brand on “All Things Considered”.The treasure trove of his dearest father’s collection of periodicals and books from the Iranian 60’s students’ movements inspired his installation “Dozd Baazar”, a commentary on orientalism, revolution, and the artifice of capitalism at Southern Exposure SF as apart of the ongoing Fabrications Bazaar group show in 2014. His Persian Pop gown and matching accessories were commissioned for the traveling Vinyl Icons exhibit in the UK, celebrating the musical and design innovators of the pre-Revolution 60s and 70s culture of Iran. Today's virtual state brought him to create Silk Road Super, an online bazaar supermarket of art, fashion, nostalgia, and pop inspired by a 21st century Silk Road, exchanging culture inspired by Iran, the east, the west, and far beyond into the future. As an immigrant born in Tehran, growing up in the suburban malls of California, and graduating from the discotheques of NYC, Hushidar known as "Hushi" hopes to create an online space that stands up against hate by interrupting a prejudiced system through art, fashion, education, activism, and the riches of his Iranian culture.The initial launch brings the nostalgia of the past through a curation of vintage weekly magazines, children's books that inspires the art and fashion in this bazaar. In coming weeks, a fashion collection will be premiered on Silk Road Super as well as one of a kind wearable art. Collaboration and the work of other artists will also be a key aspect of the bazaar which includes the bookstore ,featuring some of the great written works and photography of talented friends. Raised and brought up in the United States, Hushi believes Immigrants and Citizens must work together towards progress...now is not the time to runaway, now is the time to rise, resist, and inspire. Here to Stay