Sholeh Dalai left Iran for the United States in the summer of 1985 with her 3 year old daughter in the midst of the war with neighboring Iraq. She landed in Portland Oregon with the ideas she developed studying with her first social-realist mentors in Tehran...that painting could be a catalyst for social and political change. her figurative painting of that time has matured and developed into a personal and unique style of abstraction. in Choler's words: "the process of painting, the actual putting of the paint onto the canvas, the texture color and form...THAT became real, that became more important than the illusion or symbol of a painted figure."

Sholeh learned the english language and got a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from Portland State University. Through her artistic investigation, abstract art became her natural way of seeing. Sholeh moved to NYC in 2002 and began an active studio in Manhattan. In this new environment she began exploring new ways of connecting to her heritage...ways of fascination and improvisation, of patterns and forms in relationship to color. She said : ''My art is an investigation of the reality that brides my past to my present life as an immigrant…a way to bring into form our contemporary world and the social dynamics that shape it''.

''My concerns are to transcribe what i see of society, people, and landscapes , into space, forms and colors. a painting evolves directly through process and improvisation, the physicality, the feeling and texture of the paint and the surface are very important to me.''

In 2007 Sholeh spent 3 months in Berlin painting new works on paper, and in fall of the same year relocated back to her "second home" Portland, Oregon. She currently keeps a studio in both Portland, Oregon and New York.