Biography

 Payman Shay has more than 40 years of an extensive art career. He initially started to paint when he was 12, in Esfahan, Iran. In 1984, he moved to Tehran, Iran. He, in 1991, graduated with a Bachelor in Industrial Design from Tehran University. In 1992, Payman founded Lotus Art Institution, which after a couple of years gathered more than 400 professional artists and painters as his students. From 1976, when he started painting, up until now, he has worked with various materials such as oil, pastel, acrylic, and ecoline watercolor. When he was 18, he started focusing on realism. After 4 years of working on realism paintings, he started to mainly focus on abstracts and impressionism. Although his main focus is on painting, he also has a unique style for abstract and conceptual photography and digital painting. He has had more than 40 solo and group, national and international exhibitions. His exhibitions have been around the globe from Asia to Europe and America. In 2016, Payman decided to further explore Western art and to glorify his Eastern style of painting with a mixture of Western feelings. Soon after that, in 2018, Payman and his family permanently moved to the United States. In addition to painting, and illustrating for children’s books, he teaches drawing, painting, and photography. He currently resides in Chicago with his wife and his only son.