I hesitate to call myself an artist. To declare oneself a painter feels like claiming arrival at a station that can only ever recede; labels such as “artist” or “painter” sound definitive, as if they describe a state already attained, but my practice is a continuous verb. To paint, to draw, to see – these are actions that unfold and never conclude. There is no definitive arrival, only a series of attempts. When I sit in front of a blank surface, a piece of paper becomes a potential space where reality will be translated into light and shadow. The surface is empty but charged with the promise that something recorded outside of it will find a new form. My materials are simple: graphite powder, which is carbon ground until it becomes dust, and conté crayons, which are hard sticks of pigment and binder. The minimum number of tools. I make my own dust with the ritual patience of someone coaxing a material to become something else. In that ritual there is something poetic. What was solid becomes a cloud; it will eventually become skin, cloth, hair and the folds of a scarf. Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci wrote that the beginnings and ends of shadow lie between light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased; shadow is, for him, “the means by which bodies display their form,” and without shadow the forms of bodies could not be understood in detail . Those words express why graphite powder appeals to me – the medium allows me to live in the continuum between light and darkness and to reveal form through shadow. In my hands, powder behaves like a whisper: it settles onto paper with the lightness of breath and responds intimately to the pressure of my brush. To paint with powder is to negotiate with gravity and friction; each gesture is a conversation with dust and with the light that will rise from it.
I work from photographs I have taken myself. These images are not fantasies or dreams; they are moments extracted from the world. My subjects wear clothing that belongs to the world of fashion, yet I do not paint fashion as spectacle. I paint fabric as light, as weight, as structure. The seventeenth‑century philosopher Francis Bacon (who was also an early scientist, not the twentieth‑century painter) observed that fashion is an attempt to “realize art in living forms and social intercourse” That definition is helpful for me because it reminds me that clothing is a lived art form; when I paint a scarf draped over hair or the folds of a coat, I am not rendering the garment as advertisement but as a tangible record of life. My commitment to realism is not a naïve copying of appearances. I am aware of the long philosophical debate about mimesis, the imitation of nature. Aristotle wrote that art partly completes what nature is incapable of completing and partly imitates her. Elsewhere he argued that “the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance” Those two ideas guide my practice. The photograph is my source, but I am not copying pixel for pixel; I am searching for the inward significance of the figure before me, for the emotion in the tilt of a head or the way light dissolves into cloth. French painter Paul Cézanne distinguished between copying and sensation when he said that painting from nature is not copying the object but realising one’s sensations. Fidelity is not servility; to be true to nature is to be true to one’s own sensations and experience of the moment. In the tonal world of graphite, darkness is depth – the unknown waiting for light – and light is revelation, a whisper of truth on the skin of reality.
My choice to work from photographs is deliberate. Photographs are not merely images; they are fragments of time, physical traces of a moment that occurred and then vanished. Susan Sontag observed that “photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality” When I take a photograph, I search for angles, glances and surfaces where light reveals a story. Later, when I draw, I do not invent; I translate. Each line of conté, each field of graphite, is an act of fidelity to what I saw and what my camera registered. Roland Barthes wrote that photography is unique among representational media because it faithfully records the fact that something existed. A photograph carries what he called a certificate of presence; it testifies that the thing photographed was there at a particular moment. Barthes distinguished between the studium, the cultural, political and social interests that a photograph evokes, and the punctum, the detail that pricks the viewer and gives the image its emotional intensity. When I look at my photographs before drawing, I search for the punctum – the small gesture or crease that reveals vulnerability or resilience. A photograph is evidence of the real; but when I translate it into drawing, I slow down time. John Berger noted that the true content of a photograph is invisible because it derives from a play with time; a photograph bears witness to a human choice being exercised. He also argued that unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering or interpretation but “actually a trace” of its subject. Painting from my photographs means engaging with that trace and then re‑presenting it through the slower, manual labour of mark making. The photograph stops time; the drawing encompasses time.
While the camera’s shutter isolates an instant, the movement of graphite across paper accumulates hours, days, sometimes weeks. In that accumulation, the image changes; memory, choice and hand intervene. Every mark is a decision; each erasure leaves a ghost. Berger wrote that every photograph presents us with two messages: one about the event photographed and another about the shock of discontinuity . Drawing from a photograph, I dwell in that discontinuity, aware that what I am looking at has already passed, yet determined to make it present in another form. The mechanical nature of the camera has long unsettled artists. Walter Benjamin argued that photography relieved the hand of the principal artistic responsibilities; the eye now peers through the lens. Mechanical reproduction, he observed, destroys the aura – the uniqueness of an artwork that arises from its embeddedness in tradition. In the age of mechanical reproduction, images are ubiquitous and their cultic value diminishes. Yet Benjamin also noted that in photography, the human face can be a refuge for aura. I am interested in how drawing from a photograph might restore some semblance of aura to a mechanically reproduced image. By slowing down the translation, by allowing my hand to dwell on the curve of a cheek or the shadow under an eye, I hope to recover a sense of presence. Henri Cartier‑Bresson, the master of candid photography, wrote that there is a creative fraction of a second when one takes a picture – the decisive moment when the eye sees a composition and intuition tells the photographer when to click the camera; once missed, it is gone forever . My photographs capture such fractions. My drawings then become a meditation on what that fraction contains. They are expansions of decisive moments into durational experiences.
The medium of graphite powder situates my work within the tradition of black and white images. Black and white photography has always been associated with a certain sobriety and introspection. A guide to monochromatic photography notes that stripping away the distraction of colour forces us to focus on textures, contrasts and the soul of the subject . Many photographers have celebrated the expressive potential of monochrome. The photographer Anders Petersen said that in black and white there are more colours than in colour photography because one can use one’s experiences and knowledge to put colours into black and white. Ansel Adams observed that one sees differently with colour photography than with black and white; visualization must be modified by the specific nature of the equipment and materials being used . He also remarked that black and white photography is a departure from reality . Walker Evans, known for his documentary photographs of the Great Depression, warned that colour tends to corrupt photography and that absolute colour corrupts it absolutely; in a black and white photograph, he said, a carefully arranged statement is as good as a disciplined installation in a gallery. Robert Frank wrote that black and white are the colours of photography, symbolising the alternatives of hope and despair to which humanity is forever subjected. Ted Grant noted that photographing people in colour captures their clothes, whereas photographing them in black and white captures their souls. Joel Sternfeld described black and white as abstract, a strange world already removed from the one we know. Samuel Fuller claimed that life is in colour but black and white is more realistic. Dominic Rouse argued that colour distracts the eye but black and white retains the essence. Leonard Freed called black and white the conscience of photography , and Elliott Erwitt declared that colour is descriptive whereas black and white is interpretive.
These reflections articulate why I choose to work in graphite. Without colour I can focus on the tonal gradations that translate light and shadow; my images can evoke the inner life of the sitter rather than the distractions of surface. I am not interested in the decorative; I am interested in the relationship between skin and cloth, between the weight of fabric and the body it protects, between eyes that look back at the viewer and the environment that frames them. It is important to emphasise that I do not paint from imagination. I paint the dreams I photographed one day that are realities. In Persian culture the boundary between dream and reality has long been porous. Iranian poets from Hafez to Rumi describe the world as a dream from which we awaken upon death; the Sufi tradition, which suffuses Iranian art, regards everyday reality as veiled and emphasises the unveiling of deeper truths. My photographs often come from moments that felt dreamlike: a glance, a gesture, an arrangement of fabric that I noticed and captured. When I draw these images, I do not invent dream imagery; I translate a dream that was already a reality. In this sense my work aligns with the insight of John Berger that a photograph always refers to what is not seen . The photograph points beyond itself to the context, the feelings, the lives that cannot be fully contained within it. My drawing is an attempt to reveal some of that unseen dimension. Paul Klee famously said that art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible. He argued that we do not need art to show us what we can see at first sight; we need it to enrich our view and reveal universes, other beauties and truths. Klee insisted that art makes visible what was invisible . When I draw from a photograph, I am not reproducing the visible. I am making visible the tonal gradations, the emotional weight and the fragility that the camera captured but could not fully express. My work is, in this sense, a translation of a real dream into another form of visibility.
An important theoretical thread that runs through my work is the relationship between time and image. Photography arrests time, whereas drawing accumulates it. When Susan Sontag noted that a photograph is a piece of the world, she also emphasised that it is an “act of selection” The photographer imposes a point of view; the resulting image is a fragment, a partial truth. Roland Barthes explained that every photograph is an index: it is literally connected to its referent and therefore testifies to its existence. But photographs, as John Berger observed, remind us of what we forget; they are the opposite of paintings, which record what the painter remembers. Memory is selective and malleable; it reconstructs and reinvents. Painting from a photograph thus involves two layers of selection: the camera’s and mine. Each line I draw is a decision about what to remember and what to let fade. Berger wrote that a photograph is static because it has stopped time, while a drawing or painting is static because it encompasses time. The difference is crucial: the drawing condenses days of hand movements into a single image. That condensation means that the time of making becomes part of the work’s content.
When I look at my finished drawings, I see the hours of sanding graphite, the careful layering of dark and light, the repeated brushing and erasing to achieve a particular tonal shift. The viewer may not know this, but I believe the labour is palpable. Edgar Degas, whose work in pastel and monotype I admire, said that art is not what you see but what you make others see. He insisted that a painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness and some fantasy , and he declared that nothing in art must seem to be an accident. Those statements resonate with my practice: I aim to make the viewer see the subtlety of fabric and flesh, but I also leave space for ambiguity. Degas also acknowledged the discipline behind his apparent spontaneity when he said, “I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine”. My own work, though it may appear ethereal, is similarly the product of disciplined repetition.
The act of sanding graphite to powder and applying it with minute control is physically demanding; it is a craft that must be learned through practice. Degas wrote that one should do it again ten times, a hundred times; nothing in art should seem accidental. Michelangelo’s admonition to his apprentice Antonio Mini, “Draw Antonio, draw and don’t waste time,” underscores the same ethic. Artistic mastery comes from endless iteration rather than divine inspiration. As an Iranian-born artist working today, I find these historical voices reassuring: they remind me that craft and diligence matter as much as concept. My Iranian heritage is a deep well that nourishes my sensibility, even if my work is not overtly “Persian.” Growing up in Iran, I was surrounded by poetry, calligraphy and miniature painting. The Persian miniature tradition emphasises meticulous detail, intricate patterns and a flat yet deep space where figures and ornament co-exist. Although my drawings are based on photographs and rendered with Western materials, but chiaroscuro is very popular in Iran, I feel a kinship with the patience and precision of miniaturists. The swirling folds of fabric in my work echo the arabesques of Persian textiles. The emphasis on light and shadow resonates with the spiritual symbolism of Iranian architecture, where light filtering through lattice screens creates patterns of illumination and darkness reminiscent of the interplay between the divine and the mundane.
Iranian poets speak of the world as a veil; in Hafez’s lyrics, wine and love are symbols for a reality behind appearances. While I do not illustrate poetry directly, the notion that reality is veiled influences the way I perceive my subjects. I often drape them in scarves or shawls that partially conceal their faces. These veils are not props; they are part of the lived reality of my subjects and part of my own experience as an Iranian woman. They also become metaphors for the layers of concealment and revelation inherent in any representation. The global world of art and philosophy provides the framework within which I situate my practice. I do not see my work as isolated in a national tradition but as part of an ongoing conversation about the nature of representation. Plato famously distrusted painters because he believed their work was thrice removed from reality – mere imitations of imitations. Aristotle responded by recognising imitation (mimesis) as a natural human instinct and by valuing its educative and cathartic functions.
Yet he also distinguished between outward appearance and inward significance. Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci turned to science and observation to understand light and shadow; his treatise on painting is a manual for perceiving the world rather than imposing preconceived forms. Romantic artists like Delacroix believed that colour is the soul of painting, whereas Impressionists like Monet chased the transient effects of light. Modernists such as Paul Klee sought to break from representation altogether, insisting that art makes visible what is invisible. Twentieth‑century photographers like Cartier‑Bresson emphasised the decisive moment , while critics like Benjamin analysed the aura of the artwork in an age of mechanical reproduction. Contemporary thinkers still debate whether digital images have severed our connection to reality or whether new forms of art can restore meaning. My work enters this dialogue by suggesting that drawing from photographs is not an anachronistic exercise but a way of mediating between the mechanical and the manual, between the instantaneous and the durational. It is a way of reclaiming time and presence in an age that constantly accelerates.
Another theoretical influence on my practice is phenomenology – the philosophical study of experience and perception. Maurice Merleau‑Ponty argued that perception is always embodied; we do not simply receive images but engage with the world through our bodies. When I draw, my whole body participates – my hand moves, my breath slows, my muscles tense and release. The graphite powder sticks to my fingers; I feel the texture of the paper under the brush. This tactile engagement contrasts with the disembodied act of pressing a shutter. John Berger’s observation that the camera relieves us of the burden of memory, that it surveys us like a god , suggests that mechanical reproduction can create distance. Drawing, by contrast, requires proximity and touch. It is, as the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr might say, a practice of the hand that is also a practice of the soul. Islamic art has long privileged calligraphy over figuration because the written word is considered divine; yet the flowing line of calligraphy is itself a discipline of the hand. In my work, the line emerges from powder rather than ink, but the discipline remains. I trace curves and folds with the same reverence that a calligrapher applies to letters. Each line carries meaning beyond its literal representation.
The clothing in my drawings plays a significant role. As Francis Bacon observed, fashion is the attempt to realise art in living forms and social interaction. Clothing both expresses and constrains the body. It reflects cultural values, personal choices and collective identities. In my photographs, I am attentive to how fabric moves and rests, how it clings or billows. When I draw, I translate those movements into tonal rhythms. The folds and creases become landscapes of light and shadow. Edgar Degas, often called the painter of dancers, remarked that his chief interest in dancers lay in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes. I feel a similar fascination; I am drawn to the expressive potential of fabric. Yet I also know that clothing can be a mask, a veil. In Iran, the hijab is a complex symbol; it can be a sign of piety, an imposition of state, a personal choice or an artistic device. In my work, the scarf often serves as a frame for the face, focusing attention on the eyes. The face is the part of the body where, as Benjamin suggested, the aura might still reside. When I render a face in graphite, I seek to convey not just likeness but presence. The powder allows me to build shadows that have weight and delicacy, to suggest the softness of skin and the depth behind the eyes.
There is a paradox at the heart of my practice: I insist on realism while acknowledging that the image cannot be the world itself. Susan Sontag wrote that the photograph is an object and a record; it does not narrate but confers an appearance of explanation. John Berger wrote that a photograph always refers to what is not seen. Roland Barthes noted that a photograph is a message without a code – a direct emanation of reality – yet he also emphasised that the punctum is subjective. The tension between objectivity and subjectivity, between evidence and interpretation, is where my work resides. I paint from photographs not to copy them but to interrogate them. I ask: What does this image hide? What can drawing reveal that the camera cannot? Walter Benjamin feared that mechanical reproduction would diminish the aura of art , but by translating a photograph into drawing I try to reintroduce aura through labour, touch and attention. The drawing is not unique because of any inherent superiority; it is unique because of the hours of engagement inscribed in it. It is, to borrow a term from anthropology, a “thick description” of the photograph.
The humility with which I approach my work comes partly from the knowledge that art history is filled with geniuses whose achievements dwarf mine. Michelangelo’s admonition to draw constantly and without wasting time reminds me that mastery is labour. Degas’s assertion that art is not what you see but what you make others see emphasises the communicative function of art. Klee’s insistence that art makes visible what was invisible encourages me to look beyond surface. At the same time, I do not fetishise suffering or genius; I recognise that everyone’s circumstances shape their possibilities. I carry histories of displacement and adaptation. My practice is a way of negotiating between worlds – between the language I grew up with and the languages I now speak, between the visual traditions of Iran and the contemporary art world in which I participate. The dreamlike quality of my images reflects this in‑between state. They are anchored in reality yet infused with the feeling of being slightly elsewhere. In developing a theory of my work, I often think of translation as a metaphor. In linguistic translation, one moves a message from one language to another, preserving meaning while changing form. Translation involves loss and gain; it can never be perfect. The translator interprets, chooses, sometimes invents.
Similarly, when I paint from a photograph, I translate from the mechanical language of pixels to the tactile language of powder and line. I preserve certain aspects – composition, light, gesture – while altering others – texture, focus, mood. The translation is not literal; it is interpretive. Like a good translator, I aim to remain faithful to the spirit rather than the letter. This attitude aligns with Aristotle’s view that art completes what nature cannot finish and reveals the inward significance of things.
It also resonates with Paul Klee’s declaration that art makes visible what was invisible . The photograph may show the surface, but the drawing can reveal weight and time. The act of sanding graphite into powder echoes the act of grinding pigments in traditional Persian painting; it is a materially grounded labour that connects me to a lineage of makers. The dust on my fingers reminds me that images are not immaterial. They are made of matter and time. My drawings often depict people whose faces show little overt expression. I am attracted to moments of stillness. There is a certain dignity in a gaze that does not perform. In Iranian culture, modesty is sometimes enforced but is also cultivated as a form of self‑possession.
My sitters are often young people balancing between tradition and modernity; they wear contemporary clothing but adopt poses reminiscent of classical portraits. In Western art history, the portrait has been a site where power and identity converge. Portraits of rulers assert authority; portraits of bourgeois families display wealth. My portraits are not commissions; they are collaborations with friends and acquaintances. The blue plastic nose ring seen in my photograph is not a piece of jewellery but a training aid used by fake trend in Iran. It becomes an absurd yet poignant detail. John Berger wrote that the photographer chooses what is worth recording. I chose to record that moment because it revealed an intersection of beauty and strangeness. When I draw the nose ring in graphite, it becomes a tonal form rather than a colourful object. Its presence raises questions about identity and play. Is this a costume? Is it an act of defiance? The viewer cannot know, but the ambiguity invites contemplation. As my practice has developed, I have become increasingly interested in how the photograph’s dreamlike quality intersects with reality. The philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote about the poetic power of the dream and the reverie. Dreams, he argued, are not just escapes but creative forces that reshape reality. In Persian poetry, dreams are often messages from the divine or glimpses of a truer reality. My photographs sometimes capture moments that feel as though they belong to another world – not because I stage them, but because the world itself offers surreal juxtapositions. A girl wearing a bright scarf stands in front of a decaying wall; light falls on her face in a way that seems too perfect to be real. When I draw these scenes, I try to preserve their strangeness without embellishing them. The graphite powder allows me to create smooth transitions from light to dark that evoke a sense of being suspended between waking and dreaming.
At times I will blur edges to suggest the uncertainty of memory. I am aware that memory is not a stable archive; it is reconstructed each time it is recalled. The philosopher Henri Bergson argued that consciousness is the intersection of memory and perception, that the past coexists with the present. My work attempts to visualise this coexistence. The intellectual traditions of modern photography and art criticism provide additional tools for thinking about my practice. Roland Barthes, in his book Camera Lucida, wrote that the essence of photography is its indexical relationship to the real – the fact that the thing has been there. Yet he also emphasised the punctum, the detail that wounds the viewer. In my drawings, I search for puncta. I dwell on the small details that give the image its emotional charge – a stray strand of hair, the curve of a lip, the tension in a hand. Susan Sontag warned that the proliferation of images can produce indifference; when everything is photographed, nothing is truly seen. Drawing from photographs is, for me, a way of resisting that indifference. It is a way of slowing down and looking again. John Berger lamented that photographs are often looked at but seldom looked into; painting invites looking into because it contains the evidence of time . My hope is that viewers will look into my drawings and feel the time and care that went into them.
Many contemporary artists work from photographs; some use digital projectors to trace outlines, others appropriate found images. I do not trace or project; I draw freehand. This is not because I believe tracing is illegitimate, but because the process of drawing by eye is integral to my engagement with the image. When Michelangelo wrote “Draw Antonio, draw and don’t waste time” , he emphasised the discipline of observation. To draw from a photograph is to learn to see what the camera saw and what it did not see. I often make several studies before embarking on a finished work. In these studies I explore how powder behaves, how much to erase and how much to leave. The finished drawing is not a mere copy of the photograph; it is the result of cumulative decisions.The surface of the cardboard is a critical element of my work. I use thick, smooth paper that can withstand repeated brushing and erasure. Graphite powder adheres differently to various textures; a smooth surface allows for subtle gradations, while a rough surface produces grainy textures. When I apply powder with a brush, I think about the direction of fibres in the cardboard and how they interact with the strokes. At times I press the powder into the cardboard with a cloth, creating soft transitions; at other times I use the edge of a conté stick to draw sharp lines. The interplay between powder and conté creates a spectrum of marks – from velvety shadows to crisp edges. These marks are akin to musical tones; they create rhythm and structure.
Wassily Kandinsky, who considered colour analogous to music, said that colour is a power which directly influences the soul and that colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, and the soul is the piano with many strings. Although my work is monochromatic, I think of tonal values as musical notes. Light and dark become the keys I press to create vibration. Kandinsky also observed that colours provoke a psychic vibration and hide a power still unknown but real . In black and white, tonal contrasts provoke their own vibrations; they resonate with our perception in ways that are not purely optical. When a viewer tells me that my drawings feel dreamlike or haunting, I suspect that it is this vibrational quality they are responding to. Because my works are made from graph powder, they require careful handling. The powder sits on the surface and can be smudged if touched. I do not fix my drawings with spray fixative because fixative can dull the tonal range. Instead, I mount the drawings behind glass. The fragility of the medium underscores the fragility of the images’ subjects. Just as a photograph captures a fleeting moment, my drawings are vulnerable to the slightest pressure.
This vulnerability is part of their meaning. It reminds us that representation is precarious. An accidental smear could erase an eye or a fold of cloth. The viewer’s awareness of this fragility may heighten their attention. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote that beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror; perhaps the fragility of my drawings adds an element of vulnerability that deepens their beauty. Some viewers have asked why I do not embrace colour. Colour is seductive, but for me it often feels like a distraction. Elliott Erwitt’s distinction between descriptive colour and interpretive black and white resonates with my preference. In monochrome, I can focus on structure and mood. At the same time, I am aware that colour carries cultural significance. In Iran, the colours of carpets, tiles and textiles are imbued with symbolic meanings. Blue signifies heaven; red signifies life and sacrifice; green is associated with Islam. By choosing to omit these colours from my work, I shift attention to form and light. This omission is not a denial of my cultural heritage but a strategic choice. It allows me to engage with a broader conversation about the materiality of drawing. At times I imagine making a colour work, perhaps by adding traces of pigment to the graphite. But for now, monochrome remains my language. Most parts of my movies are in black and white as well. My reluctance to call myself an artist also stems from the awareness that the term is loaded with expectations. Artists are often expected to have a signature style, a brand, a persona. They are expected to innovate or shock. I do not seek to shock; I seek to understand. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warned against the dangers of becoming a “great man” whose image overshadows his work.
In the contemporary art world, the cult of the artist can eclipse the art itself. By refusing the label, I liberate myself from some of those pressures. I prefer to think of myself as a person who paints and draws, as someone engaged in a practice rather than a profession. This does not mean that I reject ambition or professionalism; it means that I prioritise the process over the title.
Art historical discourse often treats drawing as preparatory, subordinate to painting. However, many artists have elevated drawing to an end in itself. Michelangelo’s studies are celebrated for their vitality; Degas’s charcoal drawings are admired for their expressiveness. The Italian Renaissance term disegno encompassed both drawing and design; it was considered the intellectual foundation of art. The discipline of drawing trains the eye and hand to see and to think. Graphite powder, though not a traditional drawing material, allows me to explore drawing as a kind of painting. It blurs the distinction between line and tone, between drawing and painting. The large scale of some of my drawings invites immersion. Viewers can stand close and see the granular texture of the powder or step back and see the whole figure. The images operate at multiple distances. In developing my work, I have looked to contemporary artists who engage with photography and drawing. William Kentridge, a South African artist, uses charcoal drawings that he films and erases to create stop‑motion animations. His work explores memory, political trauma and the trace. I admire how he embraces the smudges and erasures as part of the image. Vija Celmins makes meticulous drawings from photographs of the night sky and ocean; her works are exercises in attention and patience. The German artist Gerhard Richter paints from photographs, sometimes blurring the image to evoke the indistinctness of memory. These artists demonstrate that translating photographs into other media can produce new meanings. I do not compare myself to them, but I feel kinship with their concerns. Their practices legitimise mine.
The question of authenticity often arises when working from photographs. Some purists argue that drawing from photographs is derivative. I disagree. Every image we make is mediated by perception and memory. A photograph is one form of mediation; drawing is another. The interplay between them can be fertile. In fact, photography itself was initially seen as a tool for painters. Early photographers like Henry Fox Talbot referred to their photographs as “pencil of nature” images, emphasising the continuity with drawing. Today, digital manipulation has blurred the boundaries between photography, painting and drawing. In this context, working with graphite powder and conté – materials associated with traditional drawing – is a way of asserting slowness and craft. Some viewers have told me that my drawings look like charcoal or even photographs themselves. This feedback interests me because it suggests that the translation has become seamless. Yet I am aware that the medium matters. The graphite powder has a sheen that can catch light differently from charcoal; the conté lines have a warmth that distinguishes them from ink. The physicality of the materials contributes to the work’s presence. When I look at my drawings in natural light, I see the subtle glimmer of graphite; when I photograph them, this glimmer often disappears. The reproduction flattens the tonal range. This phenomenon reminds me of Walter Benjamin’s observation that mechanical reproduction alters the aura of the original.
The aura is not just about scarcity; it is about presence. The drawing in the room has a presence that its reproduction lacks. As someone who works from photographs, I am attentive to this paradox: my source is a reproduced image, but my destination is a unique, physical object. In addition to human figures, I sometimes incorporate natural elements into my images – leaves, branches, stones. These elements function as counterpoints to the man‑made garments. They also connect the figures to a wider world. Nature in Iranian poetry is both literal and symbolic; gardens are places of sensual pleasure and spiritual reflection. In my drawings, a leaf may echo the pattern of a scarf or the curve of a hand. The interplay between organic and fabric forms invites contemplation of growth and decay. I am aware that graphite itself is a natural material – crystallised carbon. When I turn it into dust, I enact a miniature cycle of erosion. The powder, once applied to paper, becomes part of a new composition. Eventually, if exposed to moisture or touch, it could disperse again. This cyclical nature of matter mirrors the themes of time and impermanence that run through my work.
Looking beyond visual art, I find resonances in music and literature. Classical Persian music is characterised by improvisation within established modes (dastgah). The musician learns the modes by heart and then improvises variations. My drawing practice has a similar structure: I work within the “mode” of a photograph but improvise in the translation. In literature, modernist writers such as Marcel Proust explored memory and perception in ways that parallel my concerns. Proust famously wrote that true paradises are paradises we have lost; my drawings of past moments may evoke a similar nostalgia. The poet Forugh Farrokhzad, one of Iran’s most celebrated modern writers, wrote about women’s voices and desires in a society that sought to silence them. Her poem “I Will Greet the Sun Again” speaks of renewal and resilience. While I do not illustrate her poetry, the spirit of her work – its courage and its introspection – influences my own. Another conceptual framework relevant to my practice is the notion of the gaze. In feminist theory, the gaze is a tool of power: the male gaze objectifies women; the colonial gaze exoticises others. By photographing and then drawing individuals, I must examine my own position. I aim to collaborate with my subjects rather than objectify them. I invite them into my process; I share the photographs and talk with them about how they wish to be represented. When I draw, I imagine them looking back at me through the image. The viewer, too, becomes part of this triangle of gazes. The subject’s eyes meet the viewer’s eyes across the page. In some drawings, the gaze is direct; in others, the subject looks away. These choices shape the viewer’s experience and raise questions about visibility and vulnerability. I hope that by foregrounding the eyes and by working in a medium that emphasises subtlety, I can create spaces of empathy rather than domination.
The act of sanding graphite to create powder is, paradoxically, both destructive and creative. I destroy the solid form of the graphite stick to generate a material I can use. This destruction echoes the photographic act of cropping: I cut away portions of reality to frame a scene. Yet from this destruction arises a new possibility. The powder becomes light and shadow; the cropped photograph becomes a drawing. There is a cycle here: making, unmaking, remaking. This cycle is mirrored in the history of art. Each generation breaks down the achievements of its predecessors to build something new. In Iranian history, the advent of photography in the nineteenth century disrupted traditional modes of representation. Portrait miniatures gave way to studio photographs; calligraphers became photographers. Today, digital images saturate our lives. By working slowly with powder and paper, I resist this saturation. I create images that demand time – both in their making and in their viewing. I have sometimes been asked how my work relates to politics. my identity is inevitably politicised. The images of women wearing headscarves and unusual objects may be read through the lens of gender and authority. I do not deny that my work is political, but its politics are subtle. It asserts the dignity of the individual in a world that often reduces people to stereotypes. It acknowledges the reality of veiling without making it a spectacle. It questions the boundaries between reality and dream, between public and private. In a global context where images circulate rapidly and often without consent, my practice emphasises consent, slowness and collaboration. This, too, is a form of resistance. To conclude these reflections, I return to the question of what it means to paint from photographs. For me, it means engaging with the world as it appears and as it recedes. It means acknowledging the mechanical trace of the camera and then countering it with the touch of the hand. It means understanding that art is both imitation and completion and that the aim of art is to reveal inward significance . It means recognising that photographs are miniatures of reality and that drawings are records of memory . It means accepting that there is no final arrival, only a continuous act of seeing, making and seeing again. Art historian Edgar Degas’s remark that art is not what you see but what you make others see serves as both caution and inspiration. I hope that in my humble efforts to translate photographs into drawings, I make visible something that was previously unseen – not a fantasy but a real dream, captured and reanimated through powder, line and time. The images reproduced here accompany this exploration. They show the transformation from photograph to drawing and allow the reader to see how tonal gradations, shadows and textures emerge in the translation. In the original photograph, the subject’s face is illuminated and framed by a patterned cloth; The eyes remain compelling, but their gaze is now mediated by powder and cardboard. I hope that by juxtaposing these images, viewers can appreciate the theoretical and practical concerns discussed throughout this article.