Alireza Shojaian

Alireza Shojaian (; born 1988) is an Iranian-born painter, visual artist and LGBTQ activist, based in France.

Early life and education Shojaian was born in Tehran to a Muslim family; he began to draw at an early age. At the age of 16 he was exposed to nude art for the first time when he saw Velasquez' Venus at her Mirror in an art magazine that was obtained in the Iranian black market. Unlike all other bareskinned images and paintings in magazines circulating in Iran, the nude body of Venus was not covered over by censoring black ink. Shojaian's reproduction of Velasquez' work was his first canvas painting. At the age of 23, Shojaian came out as gay to his university professor, who was sympathetic and encouraged him not to censor himself; her intervention enabled Shojaian to explore his sexual identity through his work and to document LGBT persons' experience in Iran.

Shojaian obtained his bachelor's degree in fine arts and painting from the Islamic Azad University in 2014. He was not allowed to complete his master's degree on account of his having chosen Queer Art as the subject of his thesis and final project. Shojaian kept his work hidden throughout his university years and did not exhibit in Iran.

In 2019, after three years in exile living in Beirut, he was granted asylum in France.

Sociopolitical activism Shojaian depicts his subjects nude or semi-nude in intimate and vulnerable positions. He states that his work aims to fight societal prejudice against LGBT people while making space for non-heteronormative masculine identities. Shojaian has stated that sexual identity is politicized in a number of countries, including Iran, where human bodies are censored and controlled, and sexual identity is scrutinized and politicized.

Sweet Blasphemy In 2017, after traveling to Lebanon, Shojaian collaborated with Lebanese queer bellydancer and artist Khansa in a series of sensual and controversial nude portraits exhibited in Beirut under the title of Sweet Blasphemy.

(2018)

One of Shojaian's better known pieces depicts the band Mashrou' Leila's frontman Hamed Sinno pinching the nipple of Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of funerary rites. In the painting, Anubis wears a rainbow colored Usekh collar, its design alluding to the pride flag.

This work references and draws inspiration from a work by an unknown painter, titled , that depicts the mistress of Henry IV of France. The collaboration with Sinno was a statement against systematic state-led persecution of LGBT minorities in Egypt. Shojaian painted the piece after the September 22, 2017 Mashrou' Leila concert in Cairo, during which the pride flag was flown. The incident resulted in the arrest of a number of concert-goers.