Seattle artist Nakisa Dehpanah’s work hovers between sculpture and performance. First developed during a residency at Base Art Space, Suspended Selves is now on view at Method Gallery in Pioneer Square, where billowy, vessel-like sheer fabric forms hang with geometric clay elements integrated into them. They seem like soft shelters or skins waiting for an inhabitant, or yearning for a previous one, but they also hold their own, like living creatures.

The installation has been activated through a series of performances, which can be viewed in a video of the work. Dehpanah moves in and out of the fabric, visible through the sheer material as she curls, reaches, folds, and emerges. It’s hard not to personify the forms. At times, she appears to be at what might be their feet, or holding their hands. Her fluid movement through them feels natural and cyclical, like a body finding and leaving its shell or skin. Each return suggests birth and becoming, but also the strange recognition of a self we once lived inside and no longer do. The performance also blurs the line between where the body ends and the surrounding world begins.

Seattle Artist Nakisa Dehpanah with Suspended Selves at Method Gallery.

Photo courtesy of Method Gallery

The exhibition opened June 4, on First Thursday, to a crowd of more than 1,000 people, a huge turnout for the gallery. Two days later, Dehpanah activated the structures in a performance with sound artist Maria Thran, inviting viewers to sit among the pieces.

“I want people to recognize themselves in the work,” Dehpanah says. “I am interested in the emotions and transformations that connect us, regardless of our individual stories.”

Though her sculptures and performances are shaped by her own experiences of memory, displacement, and becoming, she sees them as open invitations, a way for viewers to think about the changes and transformations in their own lives.

Born in Iran, Dehpanah grew up hiking and backpacking with her family in the northern mountains there, and that early connection to nature continues to shape her practice. She moved to the United States in 2016 to study architecture and sustainable design, a background that comes through in the way her work approaches structure and the body’s place within a space. Her influences range from Farsi literature and calligraphy to dance and poetry.

Dehpanah’s earlier show Rebel, presented in 2023, used fabric, movement, calligraphy, and sound to explore freedom and transformation. Suspended Selves builds from that, creating textile forms you can move around, look through, and wonder about long after you leave.

Video by Jacob Rosen. 

Suspended Selves is on view at Method through July 25, with a closing artist talk at 1 p.m. that day.

Hometown:

Bojnord, Iran

Discipline:

Multidisciplinary artist

Favorite spot in Seattle:

Majnoon Cocktail Bar. My partner and I opened it last fall, and it has become a meaningful gathering space for us, our friends, and the neighborhood. I love seeing people connect, celebrate, and build community there.

From Suspended Selves at Base Art Space.

Photo by Sung Park

Describe your work in three words.

Familiar. Strange. Becoming.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

It was never really a decision. I was painting large oil paintings when I was five years old and reciting poetry before I could even write. Architecture became another way of understanding space, form, and human experience. After the pandemic, I found myself drawing and performing again. Rather than choosing art, I felt like I was returning to something that had always been part of me.

From Suspended Selves at Base Art Space.

Photo by Sung Park

Where do you find inspiration?

Nature, poetry, and people inspire me most. I am drawn to the ways landscapes and humans carry memory, accumulating layers of experience while continuously transforming. Poetry has always been my way of understanding the world. It teaches me that beauty and complexity, fragility and resilience, can coexist. Much of my work grows from these observations, exploring how identity is shaped by the forces around us while remaining fluid, adaptive, and always in the process of becoming.

What draws you to your particular medium?

I work between sculpture and performance because I am interested in forms that exist in states of transition. Textile allows for movement, adaptation, and transformation, while clay introduces weight, memory, and grounding. Together they create bodies that feel suspended between stability and change, which mirrors many of the themes I explore in my work. Poetry is also deeply embedded in my practice. It shapes how I think about rhythm, metaphor, and emotion, allowing me to create works that are not only seen, but felt.

Tell us about your proudest moment as an artist.

One of my proudest moments was during a performance of Suspended Selves at Method Gallery. Afterward, audience members approached me in tears. They didn’t know my personal story, yet they connected deeply with the emotions carried through the sculptures, movement, and sound. Moments like that remind me that art can communicate beyond language and biography.

From Suspended Selves at Base Art Space.

Photo by Sung Park

From Suspended Selves at Base Art Space.

Photo by Sung Park

Share one piece of advice you wish you knew when you were first starting out.

You are the creator, the destroyer, and the perceiver of your own reality.

What has been the biggest industry change you’ve noticed since the start of your career?

The biggest change has been the recognition that process, collaboration, and lived experience can be just as important as the final object. Audiences are increasingly interested in the stories, relationships, and communities that shape a work.

Exhibition image from Suspended Selves at Method Gallery.

Photo by Sung Park

What do you still hope to accomplish?

I hope to continue expanding my knowledge of materials and deepen my research-driven practice. I want to create larger and more ambitious projects that bring together sculpture, performance, sound, and community engagement while continuing to explore themes of identity, transformation, and belonging.