I was born in Tehran, Iran, and moved to Los Angeles at an early age, where creativity and drawing became my way of navigating a new language and culture. I began my formal painting practice at 13, when my mom enrolled me in oil painting classes. I went on to study painting at the esteemed Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where I learned under influential instructors including Burne Hogarth and Gary Meyer. Those years gave me a deep respect for classical and Pre-Raphaelite technique and a love of storytelling through light, pattern, and texture. Read more below.
Early in my career, I exhibited and sold work at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. Like many young artists, I eventually stepped away from painting to focus on paying off student loans. My foundation in classical painting translated naturally into a successful career in the tech and entertainment world, including work as an animator on the series South Park. Those experiences sharpened my eye for color, composition, and visual narrative, yet it left me with a quiet longing to return to the studio.
This body of work called Under the Quiet Moon, is that homecoming. It explores memory, heritage, and landscapes that exist both in the world and within the imagination. Influenced by my Persian and Kurdish cultural background, I work in classical oil techniques with layered underpainting, translucent glazes, and careful attention to light. In these scenes, moonlit nomadic tents, symbolic still lifes, and luminous portraits coexist. Each painting is a meditation on the meeting point between past and present, where silence carries its own story.
