What did you want to be when you were a kid, and how does your childhood stay with you today?

I was very blessed because I grew up in a middle-upper-class environment, but we never went to museums. It was a small town, and we were very provincial. My father was an intellectual, he was a very unusual Iranian; he traveled a lot, he read many books, and he was a physician and a farmer. So I think he was my inspiration in terms of thinking that anything was possible. But what grew in me to become an artist was really instinctive, something that I still don’t understand.

It’s difficult for you to go back to Iran for political reasons, so how has that impacted you?

It’s a sweet-and-sour history for me. I am very lucky that my mother’s still around, my family still lives in Iran. But on a daily basis when I speak to my mother, we’re reminded of how we have been perpetually separated.

What was your first phase in the United States like?

I found myself alone in this country. So I had to decide on the course of my life. That next 10 years became kind of a dark period for me because I was pretty horrified about this separation, and not knowing how to take care of myself financially and emotionally. And I think much of the work that I do today‚ with its melancholy tone and its addressing of issues like abandonment, being an outcast, being always an outsider — they all come from my experience. It was kind of tough. I was not good at school when I was at U.C. Berkeley; I think I was one of the worst students. I didn’t blossom.