Throughout a distinguished career spanning over five decades, Farideh Lashai (1944 - 2013) has always juggled with varying means of expression, without recognizing any frontiers that might confine her to a rigidly defined artistic identity. A graduate of Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna she worked as a crystal designer at Riedel Studios in Southern Austria, and then Studio Rosenthal in Selb, Germany. Crystal design became her basis for practicing sculpting later in her career alongside her main discipline of painting. Prior to her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, she studied German literature in Frankfurt, Germany. Lyricism is the reigning characteristic in her works, whether it is painting, sculpture, writing, installation or a combination of animation, video and painting. She has had more than 25 solo exhibitions in Iran, Europe and the USA. She has taken part in international biennales and collective exhibitions such as the 18th Biennale of Sydney: all our relations (2012), Identity Crisis: Authenticity, Attribution and Appropriation, The Heckscher Museum of Art (2011) Hope! At Palais des Arts, Dinard (2010), Iran Inside Out, Chelsea Art Museum, NY (2009), Ludwig Museum, Koblenz (2005), and Persian Gardens, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2004). Her best-selling fictionalized autobiography, The Jackal Came (2003), was published in Iran, narrating the lives of three generations of women amidst the socio-political background of the Iranian society.

Her works can be found in major private and public collections such as the collections of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA), Centre George Pompidou in Paris, The British Museum in London, Sharjah Art Foundation, Demenga Public Collection in Basel, Deutsche Bank, Commerz Bank in Germany, National Museum of Fine Arts, La Valetta, Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), Farjam Collection, Dubai and Devi Art Foundation in New Delhi.

Sam Samiee is a painter, essayist, and psychoanalyst in training based in Berlin and Tehran. He finished Rijksakademie residency in 2015. His painting education took place at the Art University of Tehran and ArtEZ AKI in the Netherlands, where he was later a painting lecturer until 2019. He synthesises studio practice and research in art history and Persian literary history in his art, writing, and curatorial research. His research focuses on global modernist movements in 19th and 20th century Iranian visual arts in relation to the concept of Adab. Samiee is a jury member of the Dutch Royal Painting Prize (2020 to 2024). In 2016 he was among the winners of the same prize. He has exhibited at the 10th Berlin Biennale, Kunstmuseum the Hague, Manchester Art Gallery, and Kunstinstituute Melly. Since 2013 he has curated shows at W139 artist-run space, Dastan's Basement, and Art Dubai.

Sam Samiee is the curator of Abu Dhabi Art 2022 “Farideh Lashai” Exhibition.