Painting the Wounds Of a City And a Self. Interview With Azin Zolfaghari

by Alexandra Mansilla

Painting the Wounds Of a City And a Self. Interview With Azin Zolfaghari

6 May 2025

"Safe house" from the "Sore" series, Azin Zolfaghari

Azin Zolfaghari is an artist from Iran, best known for the way she paints houses (if we are speaking plainly and broadly). But really, these are more than just buildings — through her work, Azin delves into themes of decline, social passivity, and the absence of human presence in urban life.

Her buildings — marked by rust, cracks, shattered glass, crumbling stone, traces of fire or dirt (and yet with perfectly straight architectural lines) — are not just buildings; they are portraits of society. And they are also her own portrait — a portrait of Azin herself, because for many years she has been living with an autoimmune condition.

For her, the walls of a house are like skin, and the city is a living organism.

— Could you share where you were born and the kind of family you grew up in?

— I was born in 1982 in Neyshabur, a city with a turbulent past. Once upon a time, Neyshabur, located on the Silk Road, was the beating heart of Iranian cultural and artistic exchange — a city forever linked to the name of Omar Khayyam, the great poet who wrote of suffering, the transience of life, and the passage of time. Khayyam’s profound perspective seems to have subconsciously woven itself into the fabric of my paintings, giving them a distinct colour and mood.

I come from a middle-class family. My father was an Iranian carpet painter and designer, and my mother worked alongside him, assisting with the colouring of the carpet patterns. In that golden age, when Iranian carpets and rugs were at their peak, there were numerous carpet design and weaving workshops. Growing up in that atmosphere meant that my sister and I spent our childhood surrounded by intricate designs and vibrant colours. It feels as though pattern and colour have been ingrained in me since childhood, becoming an essential part of who I am.

Azin’s father, working

— Were there any artists in your family who helped shape your interest in art?

— Painting began in my childhood, in my father’s carpet design workshop. As a passionate and curious little girl, it felt like a window into the imagination. The strong smell of paints rising from old metal tins mixed with the soft sound of my father’s brushes on the drawing paper, and I would watch for hours.

With just five simple colours — red, blue, yellow, black, and white — my father created an endless world of tones and shades. For me, who had not yet heard of the science of colour, it was like alchemy; it was as if my father breathed a piece of nature’s spirit into the carpet fibres with each drop of paint.

These moments became so deeply rooted in my soul that creating any colour from nature came naturally to me, and I instinctively mixed new shades from the primary colours. At the same time, my older sister was also painting alongside my father, and I can truly say that my first painting teacher was my sister — from her, I learnt the art of painting and colouring.

Later, when I entered the Tehran University of Art, I discovered new dimensions of painting alongside life experience. But whenever I reflect on the true starting point of my artistic journey, I see myself again in my father’s workshop, next to my sister, holding the brush for the very first time, and mixing that first colour with all the excitement of a child. Those moments, those early sparks, are my roots — the place where my heart fell in love with painting forever.

Azin Zolfaghari

— What were your earliest creative memories — do you recall what you used to draw or make as a child?

— Since childhood, like many others, my paintings were childish representations of the world around me — pictures of my mother’s, father’s, and family’s faces. But gradually, as painting shifted from playfulness to self-awareness, my focus turned to still life. I became fascinated by the simple yet meaningful arrangements of everyday life: my grandmother’s old stove, faded pots, nostalgic objects tucked into corners as decoration, or even vegetables and flowers that seemed to hold stories of their own.

Still life and landscapes drew me in more than portraits, as if a deeper truth was hidden in the stillness of objects. Now, when I occasionally look back at my early works, I see traces of rural ruins emerging from my subconscious, as though they were always there, waiting to surface.

I remember when I was fifteen, I came across an old analogue photograph in my sister’s album that stirred something deep in me — an image of the ruins of Firoozeh, my father’s birthplace, perched on a dusty hill, eroded and worn down by time. I was so captivated by it that I recreated it in oil paint. That painting still hangs, framed, on the wall of my father’s house. Looking at it now, I find it strange that a teenager would be so fascinated by the image of ruins.

Perhaps the answer lies in my roots. Neyshabur, my homeland, is a place that has collapsed and risen again twice in its history — through earthquakes, Mongol invasions, and the passing of time. It is as if a collective memory of ruin, carried through generations, has settled into my subconscious and drawn me to represent crumbling walls and broken structures. For me, these ruins are not just piles of earth and stone; they are stories of struggle, decay, and rebirth that run through the fabric of my identity and shape my work.

"Mass" from "Stricken" series, 2021, Azin Zolfaghari

— If you are comfortable sharing, I understand you live with a chronic autoimmune condition. Could you tell me a bit about when that started and how you have been navigating it?

— At the age of sixteen, when I was still a teenager, I noticed small bumps appearing on my scalp, accompanied by an irritating itch. After seeing a doctor and undergoing numerous treatments, I realised that these skin rashes not only didn’t go away but actually worsened over time. Following various tests and rounds of medication, including corticosteroids, I was eventually diagnosed with a chronic skin condition called psoriasis — a disease for which, unfortunately, there is no definitive cure.

Psoriasis is known as an autoimmune disease, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissues, causing damage and inflammation. This condition has been part of my life for over twenty-five years, creating ongoing challenges. It has had a serious impact on my self-confidence; I’ve often felt the need to wear specific clothing and keep a fixed hairstyle to conceal the scars and scabs, which are far from pleasant.

At times, it feels as though the disease is a constant shadow by my side, quietly affecting my life. Yet despite all the difficulties, I do my best to keep moving forward and to appreciate the beauty that life still has to offer.

— How does it affect your artistic expression?

— Painting offers me many possibilities. Above all, it serves as a form of therapy. Through painting, I can spend hours free from physical tension, finding a sense of peace as I work — something that helps ease the effects of my illness. Engaging in expressive forms like painting or writing allows some of the weight of illness, grief, psychological pressure, and mental burden to take shape as images or words.

In my paintings, the cracks and peeling surfaces of walls visually echo the condition of my own skin. This sense of decay and deterioration reveals itself in the peeling walls I depict. The process itself feels therapeutic, ultimately leading to the creation of a painting that, in a way, resembles me.

While the damage I paint appears on the surface layer — like the crumbling surface of a wall — at the core of each work, I deliberately aim to preserve a sense of balanced structure and steady framework. Maintaining stability and proportion in the overall composition of my work is a conscious choice, reflecting my inner desire and determination.

The anxiety, turmoil, and external pressures present in society are so tangible that, in response, I strive to create order and harmony within my paintings — as a way of reaching, even briefly, for inner peace in my imagined world. This approach, expressed through the solid and geometric structure of my pieces, conveys a quiet resistance and perseverance.

"Crust" from "Stricken" series, 2021, Azin Zolfaghari

— Your works speak deeply about decline, social passivity, and absence. How did you arrive at these themes?

— I believe a large part of painting comes from the experience of loss. When something is lost in your life, it unconsciously finds its way into the work. For me, this sense of loss often appears in the form of a house. Over the past years, I permanently lost my father’s house, and in the beginning, the only image that allowed me to reconnect with the happy memories of that time was through creating and painting houses.

Of course, the images of walls and houses I draw are never direct representations of my father’s home, but their colours and textures echo the buildings of that period in my life. On another level, a house for me symbolises safety, calm, and order — yet in my paintings, this once peaceful, secure space is shown in a sickly, unstable, and tense state, shaped by the political and social pressures of the world around me.

In fact, the idea of the house always carries a double meaning for me: home and homeland. So the sense of absence or lack appears in two forms — the personal loss of a home and the broader absence of security in urban life under the shadow of a totalitarian system that strips people of freedom and authentic living.

The houses I paint are passive, emptied of human presence. This absence reflects how, in totalitarian regimes, personal desires and diverse voices are erased; society is forced into an imposed, stifled existence. This reality is even more difficult and complex for women in my society, where we are not even free to choose what we wear — we are made to conform to the patriarchal rules of the ruling system to avoid punishment or harassment.

In some of my early paintings, I placed female figures inside window frames to suggest limits and barriers. But gradually, I decided to remove human figures altogether, as their absence better mirrored the existing reality — in a totalitarian system, the erasure of individual presence is part of its unquestioned rule.

Yet I think the houses I depict ultimately hold two completely opposing meanings. On one hand, they represent a safe space that shields me from the harsh outside world — like a mother’s womb or a private sanctuary, where I can experience a limited kind of freedom. On the other hand, they represent confinement, an imposed sense of isolation, cutting me off from meaningful interaction with the outside world.

— These urban spaces you show — are they ones you know, or are they imagined?

— My paintings are born not from the utopias of the city, but from its ruins. A grey, crumbling city, where the walls whisper of the decline of culture and human life. I wander the backstreets, camera in hand, capturing the forgotten details: a broken window, a damp wall, or the geometric patterns formed by the decaying façades. I carry these scattered fragments back to my studio, where I carefully and obsessively piece them together, creating a painting that is not merely a depiction of reality, but a slice of the city’s soul — the city where I live and where the spirit of our age flows.

In these compositions, guided by my fascination with flat, perspective-free views — reminiscent of ancient Egyptian art and old architectural renderings — the city and its structures appear in a frontal, flattened position, much like personal photographs. In truth, my paintings are self-portraits, both personal and collective. They carry the collective spirit of the time; they are part of a contemporary historical moment marked by the decline and collapse of culture, society, and human life.

For me, the frontal view holds the most perfect form: all elements are shown full-length, upright, without one taking precedence or being pushed into the background. These works are not representations of specific locations or nostalgic landmarks, though they may evoke a nostalgic feeling. My paintings are not tied to a particular space or time — they are more universal, yet they resonate within any temporal or spatial context.

These paintings are self-portraits — not only of myself, but of a group, of an era. They hold within them the wounded soul of contemporary society, an age where culture and humanity teeter on the edge of extinction. The worn walls, the closed and broken windows, the corridors draped with layers of curtains in my work all speak of an imposed, stifling existence, where human voices are muted and life is pushed to the margins. These are fragments of history — not the history of a single place, but a collective history, a shared pain.

"Womb" from "Stricken" series, 2021, Azin Zolfaghari

— Do the colours you choose carry symbolic meanings for you? For instance, the grey tones, or the bold red (example: Womb from the "Stricken" series) — what do they mean?

— The painting “Womb” offers a deep and multi-layered narrative of women’s experiences in an oppressive society. The worn wall and closed window symbolise limitation and cultural decline, while the red cloth, with its vivid and dynamic colour, becomes a cry of resistance and a symbol of women’s vitality.

In the title, “Womb,” I aim to draw the viewer’s mind to themes of motherhood, creation, and refuge. The womb, as the space where life is formed, stands as a symbol of life, security, and rebirth. Yet the word “womb” can also evoke a sense of emptiness or an empty shell, challenging the idealised notion of creation and introducing a profound duality that lies at the heart of the work’s concept.

The cracked concrete wall represents the rigid, oppressive structures of society, its wear and tear speaking to broader cultural and social decay. The window, which often serves as a symbol of connection to the outside world in my work, here appears closed and darkened. This closure reflects the restrictions placed on women in a patriarchal, totalitarian society — a world where women are denied free interaction and are confined within imposed frameworks.

The red cloth, hanging from the window, becomes the focal point of the piece and carries a heavy symbolic weight. Red is a colour often linked to life, blood, love, but also violence and wounding. In this work, the cloth represents femininity — perhaps referencing menstrual blood or childbirth, both tied to the womb and the act of creation. Yet the cloth is torn and worn, as though from this womb no new life is emerging, but rather a deep, unhealed wound.

The fabric spilling from the window can be seen as an attempt at liberation — a silent cry from within the barriers, longing to be seen, to reach beyond the confines to the outside world. In my work, the contrast between the cold grey of the wall and the warm red of the fabric expresses the tension between life and death, oppression and resistance. The grey wall embodies a lifeless, suffocating space, while the red cloth, with its vivid energy, cries out the spirit of resistance and survival. This tension reflects the lived experience of women in a society that seeks to silence them — yet they continue to live, to resist, and to endure, despite their wounds and limitations.

— You use cement, stone powder, and industrial paints for your works. Why?

— Yes! For me, using unconventional materials stems primarily from curiosity — a search for the structure of colour and, ultimately, the thrill of discovering it. I am always seeking a material for my paintings that feels unique, special, and distinctive, something not commonly used, because the more unusual and mysterious the material, the more captivating and striking it becomes for the viewer — and the more likely it is to linger in the memory.

Since the focus of my work is urban space, I searched for a material that could truly convey the feeling and atmosphere of that environment onto the canvas. That’s where cement entered my work. With its rough, dry texture, cement not only captures the grey colour of the city, but also expresses its cold, lifeless mood. For me, this material is more than just a medium; it is a symbol of the world I live in.

Until I was 30, I lived in Neyshabur, a small, quiet city, and my paintings were filled with bright, vivid colours. But moving to Tehran — a grey, sprawling metropolis — changed everything. My daily journeys from home to university, constantly confronting concrete walls, poverty, class divisions, oppression, and the heavy pulse of a city weighed down by tension, transformed my artistic perspective. The grey of Tehran began seeping into my paintings, with all its weight, and cement became the language of that experience.

But this choice also holds a deeper, more personal layer. Cement, with its roughness and dryness, mirrors the surface of my own skin, marked by psoriasis — a condition that has left my skin dry and coarse. For me, this similarity is no accident. It is as if cement carries not only the presence of the city, but also the wounds of my body and soul onto the canvas.

In my work, this material acts as a bridge between the external and the internal — between the grey city I breathe in every day, and the roughness of the skin I live in.

Mural in Karaj by Azin Zolfaghari

— Your first tall mural — could you tell me more about that experience? What did it feel like to create at that scale?

— I painted this mural on the high wall of a building in Karaj. My aim was to use tulips as a feminine and delicate symbol, blooming from the corridors, window screens, and concrete walls — presenting, in essence, a feminist narrative of women’s struggle for liberation and growth against oppressive structures.

I envisioned the narrow corridors as representing women’s difficult journey towards self-awareness, while the closed windows symbolise the yearning for freedom within the confines of a totalitarian society. This work, in fact, explores the contrast between shelter and prison: the walls both protect and confine women. Yet within this harsh environment, the tulips speak of women’s resilient spirit, which blossoms even in captivity.

By depicting the softness of the tulips against the hardness of the concrete, the piece pays homage to the strength and perseverance of women in confined and challenging spaces. At the same time, the corridors and enclosed windows highlight the constant barriers women face on their path to freedom and self-expression.

This painting is not just a work of art; it is also a visual cry for the recognition of women’s experiences in a society that persistently pushes them to the margins.

"Density" series, 2021, Azin Zolfaghari

— Could you tell me about your "Density" series? What is the concept behind it?

— The series “Density” was the result of my first deep encounter with the cold, lifeless grey of concrete walls — walls that seemed to imprison not only the city but also the souls of its people. From the very beginning, I felt a strong urge to express this sense of suffocation and isolation through the arrangement of visual elements. I wanted the canvases themselves to feel like walls: solid, grey, heavy, with foundations that seemed on the verge of collapse at any moment.

I enclosed the windows — the only openings of hope — in the centre of the paintings, those small, fragile spaces of life squeezed between the pressure of the walls. This arrangement tells the story of the silence and passivity of a city where life has been pushed to the margins.

All these explanations, I must admit, were not fully clear or self-conscious to me at the start. Initially, there was simply a general form in my mind, an inner impulse to bring it into being. The first sketches began to take shape, the final form gradually emerged, and only at the end of the process could I look at the finished work and analyse or interpret it for myself. In this way, the original concept was perhaps vague and unconscious, only gaining shape and clarity through the process of creation.

First piece from "Density" series, Azin Zolfaghari

There is a kind of passivity running through this series — a mood drawn directly from the atmosphere of the social space at the time: a sense of surrender, of resignation to the doom and hardship imposed upon the geography of our lives. A layer of stillness and stagnation ripples through “Density” — a silence born from the weight of those days, from a social space filled with torment and sorrow.

This collection speaks of people who have disappeared from the frame of life, crushed under the burden of cruelty and indifference. The windows are empty, as though their inhabitants have been exiled into the depths of their homes, into corners of forgetfulness. The arrangement of each painting shows each house in all its existential weight as a solitary, isolated unit — not part of a collective or urban mass. Each house is trapped on its own island of isolation, and perhaps this separation reflects a deeper lack of solidarity and unity in the fabric of the city and the society itself.

"Density" series, 2021, Azin Zolfaghari

— And also, who are these girls in uniforms we glimpse in the windows?

— Here, “Density” may refer to the crowding or squeezing of people into closed spaces, whether physically, as in cramped and deprived living conditions, or psychologically, as a sense of suffocation and the loss of individuality.

The similarity of the figures suggests the erosion of personal identity in such environments, serving as a subtle critique of social or educational systems that enforce uniformity and sameness.

"Low Heights", 2021, Azin Zolfaghari

— I am interested in the work “Low Heights” — it feels quite different from your other pieces; it’s full of nature! Why is that?

— In “Low Heights,” which depicts a large concrete cube resting atop a thicket of slender, lush forest trees, I have sought to present a multi-layered narrative, once again addressing the theme of oppression and limitation. Here, however, the oppression is conveyed metaphorically, as a form of systematic domination over nature.

The concrete cube can be seen as a symbol of oppressive social structures that weigh down not only on nature but also on human beings, particularly women. The colour palette is deliberately more restrained: the cold grey of the cube and sky contrasts starkly with the soft green of the forest below. This simplicity of colour, combined with the rough, heavy texture of the concrete, creates a mood of isolation and weight that may set this piece apart emotionally from some of my other works.

At its core, this work reflects a broader theme: the complex, often destructive relationship between humans and nature. It weaves together environmental concerns with social critique, while remaining true to the overarching themes of pressure, oppression, and resistance that run throughout my practice.

“Chronic Condition,” from the "Sore" series, 2023, Azin Zolfaghari

— The "Sore" series feels, to me, a bit more open, more breathable — perhaps because of the white colour there. Could you tell me about this series?

— When the wave of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolution broke out in Iran three years ago, I was already working on a new collection — a body of work quite different from “Density.”

In the “Sore” collection, the isolation and submission that marked the previous series gave way to a kind of rebellion. In fact, “Sore” is a cry that rose out of that passivity and stillness; it was born from the passionate, defiant atmosphere sparked by women at the forefront of the movement. At the same time as the protests against compulsory hijab were sweeping across Iran, a kind of metamorphosis was also taking place within my paintings, signalling a new and vibrant momentum.

That passion and energy breathed fresh life and soul into my work. Although this transformation came alongside brutal violence, it also marked a new chapter of collective awareness within the social fabric. The colour white, which takes on a stronger presence in this collection, was never just a colour for me; it became a symbol of purity, of new beginnings, of a window through which light and hope might sneak in.

These white curtains seemed to reflect the spirits of the women who stood up to oppression, writing their own story of resistance with every strand of their freed hair. In parts of these works, one can see holes that might appear to be bullet holes — but for me, they were festering sores, long hidden within the body and soul of our society, now exposed and forced open by this uprising.

These wounds are painful, but they also signal the start of healing; they show that the truth, however violently, is finally pushing its way into the light.

The feedback I received from the exhibition of “Sore” was deeply moving. The audience found, within these curtains, not only my narrative but their own. “Sore” is a collective self-portrait — a portrait of wounds, failures, and hopes. Every viewer who stands before these works seems to recognise a fragment of their own being in the white, scarred curtains.

This collection reflects that fragile moment when, after long-endured suffering, a person decides to pull back the curtains and let the light — even if faint — find its way inside. Here, the whiteness of the curtains is no longer just a colour; it is a promise: the promise that even in the heart of the wound, one might, perhaps, rediscover a space to breathe again.

Detail of "Safe house" from the "Sore" series, Azin Zolfaghari

— Sometimes I look at your buildings and feel that they have wounds or scars. Is this a real feeling or do you see it differently?

— The “I” ultimately becomes the environment in which it exists, like a house. A house has a specific environment that, like a wall, separates the interior from the exterior. The wall is a clear boundary between the self and the other, much like the skin of the body. Skin is constantly in friction with the outside world, in tension, in conflict with the other.

You see, the structure of the body, like the structure of the city, has an organic nature — constantly changing, self-repairing, or even self-destructing. Because I want to find a parallel relationship between the city, which is the subject of my work, and my own body, I realised that describing the urban system is remarkably similar to describing the autoimmune disease I live with.

I have always seen the city as a living organism, like my own body: always in flux, rebuilding itself, and sometimes even breaking itself down. This similarity became even clearer to me when I reflected on my autoimmune disease — a condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissues, wounding and destroying instead of protecting. And then, when I looked at the city, I began to see the same pattern in its structure.

The urban system, which is meant to protect society from external threats, sometimes behaves like a malfunctioning immune system: instead of defending, it attacks, represses, and destroys its own elements. This duality — this shared wound — forged a profound connection for me between my body and my social life. Both my physical body and my collective life are, in some way, wounded by a flaw in the immune or security system.

Yet these wounds, painful as they are, are not just signs of destruction to me. They stand as evidence of life, of the resilience that persists even amid damage and collapse. When you see these wounds in my work, it is as if you have joined me in this silent dialogue — a conversation that quietly asks: Is a wound only pain, or can it also be a sign of regeneration and awakening?

For me, these scarred walls tell the story of both my body and my city — both wounded, both alive, both still seeking healing.

— What do you most hope your viewers feel or carry with them after seeing your art?

— More than anything, my deepest wish is that when someone stands before my paintings, they find their own story within them — as if each work were a mirror reflecting a corner of their heart and mind.

The overall spirit of my art speaks to two profound layers: one personal, rooted in my own wounds and bodily experiences with illness; and the other collective, telling the story of our shared existence within the city and Iranian society. The personal layer is like a secret, hidden in the shadows of colour and texture, while the collective layer is a cry — an invitation for the viewer to enter into a deeper conversation.

It does not matter to me whether the audience sees exactly what I felt at the moment of creation. But when I encounter a viewer, especially here in Iran, who connects with my work and reads something in it that aligns with my own intentions, my heart fills with joy. Here, in the geography of my life, audiences have often told me — through their words or simply through their eyes — that the wounds on the walls and curtains in my paintings seem to echo their own wounds. This resonance, this feeling that my story and theirs are somehow intertwined, is the greatest gift an artist can receive from their audience.

I cannot speak with certainty about audiences beyond Iran. They are not immersed in the same context, and they may approach my work through the lens of their own geography, their own experiences — and this, too, can open new doors for me. But what I do know for sure is that, at its best, art is a bridge that allows us to touch our shared humanity.

I hope that every viewer, whether from here or across borders, walks away from my work with a fragment of reflection, a spark of hope, or even a new question — a question that brings them closer to themselves, to their city, or to their own wounds and dreams.

by Alexandra Mansilla