Farëna Saburi is a visual artist whose work investigates the intersections of socio-political confinement, immobility, and the material boundaries of painting. She holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Columbia College and an MFA from the University of Missouri. Her work has been exhibited both regionally and nationally, with recent shows at the Old Stone House of Brooklyn (NY), Las Laguna Art Gallery (CA), Kansas City Artists Coalition (MO), Orr Street Studios (MO), and Sager Reeves Gallery (MO), among others. She has been awarded residencies at Orr Street Studios and Columbia College, and has received numerous honors, including the Dorothy L. Rollins Memorial Scholarship and the Frederick Shane Art Award.
Originally from Tajikistan, Farëna now lives and works in Columbia, Missouri, where she continues to make work and teach.


ARTIST STATEMENT
Farëna’s work investigates the intersections of socio-political confinement, immobility, and the material boundaries of painting. Her compositions extend beyond the canvas through a rich interplay of materials and their contexts—door hinges, curtain rods, cultural textiles, and braid extensions—creating layered, spatial works that challenge the rigidity of the picture plane and engage with bodies, architecture, and the social systems of gender and race.
Referencing spaces like dresses, doorways, and rooms, her work uses structure as metaphor, exploring restriction, transition, and the possibility of release. At the core of her practice is a desire to make visible the tension between stillness and motion, containment and resistance—where the edge becomes a site of rupture or escape. Through this material and spatial inquiry, Farëna opens a dialogue around power, identity, and the spatial politics of mobility.