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Christine KhondjiChristine Khondji was born into a French-Iranian family in Iran in 1947. As a child, she drew continuously and recalls that her drawings ‘…were like the images you make out in flames… They are the djinns, the dives, the nomadic spirits of my childhood in Iran.’ In the late 1960s, she studied archaeology and Islamic art at L’École du Louvre in Paris: this interest in pre-history led her to visit ancient sites in Africa and Europe where she first encountered the traditional beliefs and practices of Shamanism.
Khondji has travelled widely and has lived in Paris, London and Goa. She is now based in Paris where she held her first exhibition in 1995, and has since exhibited in London, Paris, Alexandria, Istanbul, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. She has exhibited with England & Co in several projects, including Obsessive Visions: Art Outside the Mainstream (2001), Two Artists from Iran (2004), and Christine Khondji: Embroideries and artist books (2023). Most recently, her artist books were exhibited in The Future of Traditions, Writing Pictures: Contemporary Art from the Middle East at the SOAS Brunei Gallery in London (2023) and is currently included in the British Museum exhibition Artists making books: Poetry to Politics (ends February 2024).
