Icy & Sot
Biography
"We loved the simplicity and quickness of single-layer stencils. since it was all illegal in Iran we had to be really quick putting a piece up. we learned so many different ways of stenciling by just experiencing"
Saman Oskouei and Sasan Oskouei better known as ICY and SOT are the two famous Iranian street art brothers. This art duo has conquered the art world by using their work as a platform to raise awareness on major world issues. Through their brilliant art, the brothers have been delivering important statements by tackling principal issues such as human rights, detention, women’s rights, the plights of migrants and refugees, climate change, or the pitfalls of capitalism. By challenging the status quo, Icy & Sot make people think about their surroundings, encouraging viewers to question everything. The brothers always work as a pair. “We have separate ideas but we put it on the street together”. “It’s always Icy and Sot.”
Their art journey started on the streets of Iran around 2006, where they were putting up small stenciled works on the streets of Tabriz and posting the images on the Internet. Soon, they were on the top of the whole Iranian urban art scene, engaging and reaching out to people all over the country.In 2011, Icy & Sot had their first solo exhibition abroad, in Amsterdam. After that success, they have moved to New York to continue their work there. Since their arrival in New York, Icy & Sot expanded their oeuvre into an ever more diverse number of mediums while retaining its rousing and defiant spirit of resistance through art. In recent years, they have had many exhibitions all over the world.