“An artist’s greatest responsibility is to reflect the times that you’re living in”

"Mina Alikhani is an Iranian American painter from Los Angeles, whose approach to stylized figurative surrealism speaks to a process of questioning, updating, and defying conventional cultural and religious strictures"

"Body language. Movement. Color. Mina’s figures twist and contort, unashamed to take up the pictorial space and unafraid to defy the laws of gravity with bodies carved out of paint and color."

"Nothing hits harder for me than creating artwork that speaks for the oppressed…"

“It’s my ‘why’… my ‘reason’… I feel a deep sense of responsibility to advocate for the oppressed and to speak for the silenced.”

"I wanted things to feel like they had life and flesh in them"

"I try not to describe my art. I think it kind of describes itself but if I had to give it “art world terminology” I could say it’s a contemporary figurative- surrealist approach to life by way of oil on canvas/paper/board…"

“They don’t have eyes. They don’t have color in their skin and it’s a bit of a representation of the deaths, the loss”

“I want to shine a light on things that nobody wants to look at."

"Alikhani had to retreat and reach deep into her hopelessness, darkness, and sense of defeat. She emerged ready to find common ground with her audience."

"Learn how to see an idea all the way through..good or bad…just see it through and don’t regret the time spent on that idea if it sucks because there is so much to learn from what doesn’t work."

"She is a purpose-driven artist whose work addresses pressing issues like political and humanitarian injustices, gender apartheid, and artistic oppression."