Born in Kabul, Afghanistan and raised in rural Washington state, Gazelle Samizay makes work often reflecting on the complexities and contradictions of culture, nationality, and gender through the lens of her bicultural identity. Her work in photography, video, and mixed media has been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally, including at Whitechapel Gallery, London; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; the California Museum of Photography, Riverside; the South Dakota Museum of Art, and the Slamdance Film Festival, Park City, Utah. Her pieces are part of the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York; and En Foco, New York. In addition to her studio practice, her writing has been published in One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature and she is a founding member of the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association. Samizay has received numerous awards and residencies, including from the Princess Grace Foundation, New York; Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles; the Arizona Community Foundation, Phoenix; Level Ground, Los Angeles and the Torrance Art Museum, California. She received her M.F.A. in photography from the University of Arizona and currently lives in San Francisco.
