Shirazeh Houshiary was born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1955. She studied at Chelsea School of Art, London (1976-79) and then for a year was Junior Fellow at Cardiff College of Art. Her first solo show was held at the Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, in 1980, since when she has shown regularly in solo and mixed exhibitions in Britain, Europe and America. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994.

Her sculpture is rooted in the mysticism of Islamic culture, particularly the poetry of Jalalu'ddin Rumi, a thirteenth-century Sufi mystic. Sufism centres on the quest for self-knowledge, its name meaning 'the path' or 'the way', and this is the essence of Houshiary's work. Art is a journey of discovery located in the realm of the imagination, which she describes as 'the creative force of the universe'. 'An artist,' she said in 1994, 'is someone who is capable of unveiling the invisible, not a producer of art objects.'

In practical terms, Houshiary is, of course, an immense producer of art objects in a range of different materials: copper, zinc, steel, brass, tin, mud and straw. Frequently she makes reference to the four elements, to earth, fire, wind and water, and attempts to convey the idea of himma or 'energy' in her sculpture. Initially her work was biomorphic in form, but over the past decade and a half it has become more geometric. This serves to emphasise the elemental beauty of the material, but also strikes a potentially universal chord across cultural boundaries. The contrasts of dark and light, solid and space, visible and invisible are strong, but the vision presented is invariably a unified one where Houshiary often seems able - literally as well as metaphorically - to square the circle.

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