Biography: Roxana Manuchehri
Born in Iran in 1974 Roxana Manuchehri got her master’s degree in painting from the Tehran University of Fine Art. Manuchehri prefers to talk of her life and work herself. She says, “I am a painter from Tehran. Human figures in Persian paintings have always fascinated me. These figures lack the sexuality, perspective and realistic quality of western-style paintings, and their characters have to be different from those of realistic figures. Nevertheless, these figures, with all of their dissimilarity to modern Iranians, represent parts of the inner world of Iranian people – as though a common historical memory, like a thread, links these figures to us.
I regard myself as a member of this inhibited, shy, and traditional generation of Iranians, who have only known western technologies and culture for less than a century. These modern glosses are like a thin shell. We are the same as those figures, looking at the world through their eyes and struggling at the interface between tradition and modernism. I address the gap of true nature and form found between such tradition and modernism.
My favourite material is acrylic which I can apply to the canvas thickly and solidly like oil, or thin and watery like watercolour. I do not use pure and shiny colours because I cannot see them. Many aspects of my country’s life are devoid of colour and this is reflected in my work.”
In 2007 Manuchehri left Tehran for Seoul where she is presently living and working. While comparing these two cities she says, “It is difficult to find real houses in large modern cities like Seoul or Tehran, just apartments like big boxes and most of them similar to each other. I am therefore interested in showing these ugly and cold buildings in the context of figures and symbols from the past.”
Manuchehri has exhibited her paintings in various galleries and exhibitions in both Iran and Seoul where she is living with her husband.
Roxana Manuchehri Talks
On Roxana Manuchehri's 'Feel the Expanse' Series
Art Exhibits
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