Sara Hassan Khani is an Iranian-born multidisciplinary visual artist based in Los Angeles, California. Shaped by her experience as an immigrant, her practice approaches architecture as a metaphor for human-made systems, tracing how place, displacement, memory, loss, and control shape the body’s relationship to power, vulnerability, visibility, and erasure. Working across airbrush, watercolor, colored pencil, charcoal, and printmaking processes, she creates layered, dreamlike imagery where multiple narratives coexist, dissolve, and reappear. She is a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach, a curatorial member of Monte Vista Projects in Los Angeles, and a recent artist-in-residence at Camera Obscura Art Lab in Santa Monica.
EDUCATION
MFA, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2020
BFA, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, 2015
AWARDS, GRANTS, RESIDENCIES & HONORS
Artist in Residence, Camera Obscura Art Lab, Santa Monica, CA, 2025-2026
Professional Artist Fellowship Grantee, Arts Council for Long Beach, 2024-2025
Finalist, Alpine Fellowship Visual Art Prize, 2025
Finalist, New Voices Artist Cohort, New York Print Center, New York, NY, 2024
Artist Panelist, Original Sources Artist Cohort, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA, 2024
Distinguished Achievement in Creative Activity Award, CSULB School of Art, Long Beach, CA, 2020
Marilyn Werby Endowed Scholarship, 2019
John Baldessari Scholarship, 2018
Public Mural Project Commission, Baharestan Annual Festival for Nowruz, Tehran, Iran, 2016
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Persistence, GWC Art Gallery, Huntington Beach, CA, 2026
Revelate, Professional Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Billie Jean King Library, Long Beach, CA, 2025-2026
Original Sources, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA, 2024
Spring ’24, Icehouse Arts Complex, Long Beach, CA, 2024
Pieces, Saddleback College Art Gallery, Mission Viejo, CA, 2022, solo exhibition
Please Wait, Saddleback College Art Gallery, Mission Viejo, CA, 2022
Path, Werby Gallery, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2020, solo exhibition
Khor Art Initiative, Saray Art Gallery, Online Exhibition, Tehran, Iran, 2020
Managart Project, Art in Quarantine, Online Exhibition, 2020
Insights, Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, Long Beach, CA, 2019
Fourth Annual Illustration Week, Tehran Gallery, Tehran, Iran, 2019
President’s House Selection, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2019
Made in California, Brea Gallery, Brea, CA, 2019
All Media Exhibition, Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, CA, 2018
4th MFA Biennial, Brea Gallery, Brea, CA, 2018
Talkhoun, Tehran Gallery, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, 2016, solo exhibition
PUBLICATIONS & PRESS
Invited Author and Artist, Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art, forthcoming 2026
Featured Artist, VoyageLA, “Rising Stars: Sara Hassan Khani of Long Beach,” January 28, 2025
Featured Artist, Los Angeles Times, “Origin Stories: Artists Examine and Protect Their Past at OCCCA,” October 31, 2024
Interviewed Artist, “Q&A [Question & Artist]: MFA Student Artists,” Brea Gallery, 4th MFA Biennial, 2018
SELECTED TEACHING & ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Lecturer, School of Art, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2022-present
Research Assistant, Art History, CSULB Research Foundation, Long Beach, CA, 2020
Visiting Artist, Saddleback College, Mission Viejo, CA, 2022
Teaching Assistant / Graduate Assistant, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 2017-2019
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Curatorial Member, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, CA, 2025-present
Juror, Student Annual Exhibition Awards, Saddleback College Art Gallery, Mission Viejo, CA, 2026
Co-Founder, drawing-house Figure Drawing Collective, Long Beach, CA, 2023-present
Co-Curator and Exhibition Preparator, Taboo to be Blue, ECF Art Center San Pedro Project Space, San Pedro, CA, 2022
Artist Collective Member, Level Ground Art Collective, Los Angeles, CA, 2021-2022