Field Review | Artist Interview Series
In conversation with
Nazanin Ghahramani
Nazanin is a London-based artist working across drawing, painting, printmaking, and digital fabrication at the intersection of art, ethnography, and sociology. Her practice explores identity formation, domestic life, spatial politics, and the everyday acts through which identities are shaped, negotiated, and sometimes collide across private and public spaces. Drawing on her background in Fine Art at the University of Tehran, she uses visual research, narrative, material experimentation, and spatial thinking to create works that move beyond representation and reflect on memory, gender, family, and human conditions.
From:
Iran
Artist Statement
As an artist, Nazanin is always looking for media that best suits her visual research and questions, encompassing traditional drawing and painting techniques as well as digital techniques such as photography and digital fabrication. Her studies in Fine Art (University of Tehran) and Architecture (University of Westminster) have given her representational tools that go beyond mere representation; creating artworks that engages with its surrounding and reflects on human conditions, such as identity, gender and spatial politics.
In her works, such as the “Looking in the Mirror” and “Duet” collections, she directly navigates her immediate surrounding, using visual ethnography to reflect on the self, memory and familial relations. In the “Duet” collection, which is about her parents and the dynamics of co-existing, She has traced her parents’ movements and everyday acts, creating a “harmony of the banal”. The harmony (or the lack of it) between the parents, mixed with domestic objects and space of the house, represents the shared space where gendered identities are formed and negotiated. The minimal and monochromatic colour palette present in most of her works, represent a more direct and sincere way of self-expression, and a better representation of the “harmony of the banal”, where colour (or the lack of it) captures the essence of what is to be human.
Tell us about yourself and your artistic background.
I'm Nazanin, an Iranian artist currently based in London. I use drawing, painting, print-making and digital fabrication to create works that correspond to the modern human condition and the ways of co-living. I have a background in art and architecture, with an MFA in Painting, and I have been active as an artist for the past 13 years.
How would you describe your artistic practice?
I am mostly concerned with auto-ethnography, politics of coexisting and the banality of the human condition. I use different techniques such as drawing, painting, printmaking and digital fabrication; each bringing out a different aspect of my surroundings. While drawing and painting give a direct access to human emotion, with digital fabrication I experiment with different and imaginary ways of being, as well as memories and childhood.
What themes or ideas are most important in your work?
The most prominent aspect of my work is its direct connection to the immediate surrounding, questioning the politics of coexisting; how we exist in the space of the home, as well as the objects that surround us. For me it's necessary to look at myself and other people, understanding the ways in which they make space for themselves or retreat; how they behave and how they exist together within a shared space.
What inspires your creative process?
I am inspired by figurative works, especially ethnographic and autoethnographic works, such as works by Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel and Lynn Hershman Leeson. I am intrigued by how artist, mostly women, engage with their own identity and gender, as well as universal facts about life such as death or growing old.
Can you tell us about a recent artwork or project?
Recently I worked on a project called "Impossible Woman", where I focused on my childhood and the formation of my gender identity as a process with cracks where I had tried to defy gender norms. I have recreated spaces from memory and represented them in surrealistic collages (combination of traditional drawing techniques and digital collages). I have tried to incorporate research and self-investigation as an artistic method in this project.
What challenges have influenced your development as an artist?
As someone who comes from a background where questions about identity and an art practice are not welcome, my biggest challenge was to rediscover myself and commit to being an artist that targets herself, the private space of the house and her surroundings. For me, looking back at myself, is the way to to question everything else that exists.
What role does art play in your life today?
Art for me is one of the few avenues where I feel the freedom to explore memory as well as alternative futures; it is a way for me to remember, create, and imagine other ways of being. Without it, I think, I won't be able to digest what has been given to me in life.
What are you currently working on?
Currently I am working on a new collection of work based on family photos; "[un]known faces". There are many photos of my childhood and my parents early years, ceremonies and the likes of it, where there are many people present in the photos, many of whom are no longer here, and many of whom I don't know. Capturing the instant nature of the photos alongside the state of familiarity/unfamiliarity of these memories is what intrigues me.
What are your future goals as an artist?
Art is the way I digest the world. In the future, I'll continue to create works that explore different aspects of my identity and my surrounding present. I plan to broaden my techniques to find ones that suit each project, as well as mixing different modes of knowledge and different techniques, using research as an integral part of my work. I try to keep being sensitive to my surroundings, to the people in my life, and our state of coexisting.
Where can readers follow your work?
They can follow me on instagram: @nazanin.ngh.0 ,as well as my website: https://www.nazaninghahramani.com/
