Zahra Imani is interested in the way textiles relate to conventional ideals of femininity and their practical uses in everyday life. She trained as an oil painter at the Tehran University of Fine Arts and has worked as a children’s book illustrator and public mural painter. She draws on these disciplines, as well as Persian miniature painting, to create very large-scale textile compositions that depict intimate moments in Iranian women’s lives with humour and insight. The materials in her work are affordable and widely available from bazaars in Tehran; they are often used for garments or in the domestic sphere as curtains, cushioning or bedding. Imani is sensitive to the religious and political viewpoints on women’s bodies in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and she uses a wry humour to reflect upon these issues in her work.
