Reza Assemi was born in 1975 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The only son and middle child of an Austrian mother and Persian father, his early childhood was spent in Vienna, Austria and Tehran, Iran before his family returned to the United States, settling in Fresno, California. His childhood was spent between Fresno and Vienna where his mother took him on excursions through the catacombs and rich museums, their silence and moisture living along with him throughout his life. Playing in the backyards of his family's homes, he mixed the different colors of clay and soil together, feeling the texture, immersing himself in the metamorphous of his blends, the earth existing as his paints and his canvas. Much like the earth in Assemi's childhood creations, oil is his primary source to express his ideas about the interior and exterior worlds he inhabits as an adult.
Oil is more than technique, it has none, more than knowledge, that means nothing.
It is instinct through one's eyes, through one's hands. I am attracted to painting more than anything else for its smell and wetness. Assemi lives in a constant state of instinct, feeling, and gray matter. His paintings reflect his way of living, his fascination with life, death, isolation, distinct lines, the pealing away of perfection and the dichotomies of being human through escape and exploration. Tradition eradicating in the blip of a moment bringing together the riveting questions of the soul stretching into individualism, science, and technology as it forsakes community and spirituality.