Studio 17: Maneli Keshavarzi

Born in Tehran, Iran in 1974 to artistic parents, I moved to the States in 1990.  I studied animation at San Francisco State and did an internship at Pixar for the animated feature film "Bug's Life."

Street performance, guerilla theater and fire performances are as much a part of my career as are painting, sculpture and music.  In 1999, I created a mobile puppet theater in San Francisco, following in the footsteps of my father, Ardeshir Keshavarzi, a famous puppeteer and children's theater proponent in Iran.

In 2006 I began creating the "Goddess" series of bronze masks, using the "lost wax" process of bronze casting.