Biography
Maryam Jahani was born in 1986 in Tehran, Iran. She studied architecture in college, but had a strong affiliation for arts, consequently she studied advanced design and printmaking and started to professionally and independently paint and printmake. During this time, she attended, volunteered, and assisted in holding many art workshops. Furthermore, she took courses on methods of teaching arts to children and teenagers which made her very enthusiastic about teaching arts to children. She then started her own personal atelier where she privately taught young children in addition to creating her own art. To this day, she is still teaching arts and printmaking in a few renowned art schools. In her own words:
“I was a detail-oriented person since childhood and carefully observed everything: faces, hands, patterns on clothes, the paintings on the neighbor lady’s dress when she came to have a cup of tea with my mom, the shadows created by columns, how things look in darkness, and the shape of the clouds. I would re-imagine all these things as a portrait of a woman, or a silhouette, or a cat’s head, or even a mighty dragon. Sometimes I traced the patterns of a Persian rug and imagined them as a horse, or a woman with closed eyes. Today, I endeavor to reinforce the curious gaze of children and flourish their creativity when I teach them.”
She has experienced with a lot of art techniques including pastel, oil painting, water color, ink, and acrylic. Her technique of choice is acrylic which she uses on canvas, cardboard, or wood. She is an expert in using calchography in printmaking.
She likes to use impressionist colors, has an expressive brush and a childlike approach to art in her paintings. She paints freely. She has been influenced by many 20th century artists such as : Matisse,Vangogh, Vandongen,….) which helped her find her own path. She focuses on the feminine in her works. Women and girls play a significant role in her works. On this subject, she says:
“I can’t ignore the important role of Forough Farokhzad in my artistic life. I instantly fell in love with her free, loving, and rebellious character. She had dared write poetry on femininity, romance, and even lust in a traditional and closed society, without care for judgments. In addition to this role model, sexual discrimination and inequality in today’s Iran made women’s issues a serious concern for me.”
Each of Maryam’s works tells a story: “I believe all humans are ultimately alone in the depths of their minds. In my art shows, I have encountered many people who tell me that they identify with the women in my paintings or they felt that they had seen those women somewhere. The women I paint have real world equivalents because I paint their feelings and I actually think about them as I paint them.”
Her artworks have been shown in many group and individual art exhibitions in Iran and all around the world. She has had her works presented in Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, Istanbul, Milan, Oslo, and Chicago. She has also won prizes in art contests. Her works have been praised by critics too. After COVID-19 pandemic hit, she has worked profusely in her personal atelier. She also started an online workshop to teach arts to more children around the world. She has taught and held workshops for students from Iran, Canada, United States, Netherlands, and Germany.
Art comes into play when people feel helpless. It is then that the creativity of the artist jumps out of the canvas and into the real life. My belief – based on personal experience – is that it is not the individual that chooses to be a painter. Painting is just another method for organizing the information in our minds. We use painting to tell and re-tell stories. Being an artist is a long game and is a life-long path.”