Meet Mamak Razmgir | Visual Artist & Storyteller

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mamak Razmgir and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mamak, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I’m originally from Iran, a country with a deep history of art, poetry, and rich culture, but also a place where personal freedom especially for women has been constantly restricted. Growing up there shaped me in many ways. As a child, I was always drawn to storytelling and imagination, which eventually led me to illustration. But as I matured, I became increasingly aware of the social and political struggles, especially those faced by women. That awareness transformed my creative practice into something more personal and urgent.

My upbringing taught me how to create meaning in the face of silence and how to use visual language inspired by Persian miniature painting when words were censored. The symbolism, surrealism, and layered narratives in my work today are all rooted in that experience of living between beauty and control. It also made me deeply empathetic and passionate about building bridges between cultures, and about using art as a space for storytelling, and social transformation. Being an immigrant has added another layer of complexity to my identity, but it has also given me a broader lens to see the interconnectedness of struggles and the power of creativity in facing them.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art is rooted in storytelling, symbolism, and resistance. As an Iranian-born multidisciplinary artist, I draw from personal experience, cultural heritage, and realities to create surreal, layered worlds that speak to themes of freedom, identity, and resilience especially the strength of Iranian women. I often blend painting, jewelry, and found objects to bridge the personal with the contemporary themes, the real with the imaginary. Persian miniature painting, mythology, and surrealism inform my visual language, while contemporary events fuel my urgency to create.

What sets my work apart is that I am a storyteller first of my own experience as an immigrant navigating life in the U.S., and also of the Iranian women whose voices are often silenced. Through my art, I strive to honor their stories and struggles. I draw inspiration from Persian miniature painting, not only to preserve it, but to revitalize it with contemporary meaning. By blending it with surrealism, I create visual worlds where imagination becomes a form of freedom to question, to resist, and to reimagine what is possible. I’m most proud of creating work that opens space for dialogue about oppression, agency, and the body especially in cultures where those conversations are often suppressed.

The path has not been easy. As an immigrant, woman, and artist working across disciplines, I’ve faced challenges ranging from cultural displacement to the emotional toll of making vulnerable work. But those same struggles have deepened my voice and vision. Art has always been my way of staying connected to home, to memory, to hope.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that staying honest in your creative process is the most powerful act of all. What I want the world to know is that in the 21st century, there are still brave women especially in Iran who are risking everything just to live a normal life. They are fighting for the basic right to choose what they wear, to speak freely, to be treated equally regardless of gender, and to have their voices heard in a world that often silences them. My art is a tribute to their courage and a way to amplify their stories beyond borders.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend came to visit a place for a week, I’d take them to Iran, a journey through a land shaped by poetry, myth, and resistance, a place where ancient ruins breathe, colors speak, and symbols carry entire cosmologies.
We would begin in Persepolis, the heart of the Achaemenid Empire and one of the most powerful symbols of pre-Islamic Iranian civilization. As we walked among the colossal stone columns and engraved reliefs, we’d encounter mythical guardian creatures combinations of eagles, lions, bulls, and human forms that once stood at the gates of royal palaces. These hybrid beasts, inspired by Zoroastrian cosmology and Mesopotamian mythology, weren’t just decorative they were spiritual protectors, cosmic symbols of strength, wisdom, and balance between worlds. They echo the deep-rooted Iranian belief in duality, light and dark, body and spirit, known and unknown.

Then we’d travel to Isfahan, a city that feels like an architectural dream. In the turquoise-tiled mosques and flowing arabesques of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, meaning is layered into every surface. The domes and mosaics, constructed with mathematical precision, tell stories of the cosmos, divine geometry, and eternal beauty. Color itself becomes a language, deep blues for introspection, gold for divine light, and green for growth and healing. Persian architecture was not only a male-dominated domain; women artisans and designers often worked in textile design, waiving Persian carpet, and pattern development, their hands shaping the visual voice of a culture.

Another place would be In Shiraz, known for their mystical gardens and the city of poets, we’d visit the tomb of Hafez, where mythology meets mysticism. The poetic verses inscribed on his tomb speak to human longing, divine love, and the mysteries of fate—elements that continue to shape Iranian identity today.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My Shoutout goes to all the brave women of Iran especially those who risked their lives in the streets of Iran for freedom, dignity, and self-expression. These are women who have put their lives on the line simply for the right to be seen, to speak, to move freely, to live without fear. Many have faced imprisonment, violence, or exile, and yet they continue to rise through protest, through dance, through art, and through their refusal to be silenced.

Their courage is not only an act of defiance but a powerful declaration of existence. They remind me that even the smallest gesture, uncovering hair, raising a voice, walking alone can become a revolutionary act. Their attempts to reclaim agency inspire my work every day and have taught me that creativity itself can be a form of resistance.

Website: https://www.mamakrazmgir.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mamak_razmgir/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mamak.razmgir/

Image Credits
1- Dance, We Are at War- Mixed media- 60x40x30cm- 2023
2- The Holy Shadows-acrylic on canvas-145 x 90 cm-2024
3-Dancing in Tehran’s Streets- mixed media- 320 x 200x 5cm-2024
4-Girl with a pearl earring- mixed media-87 x 87x 120 cm-2024
5-the circus called life-mixed media-90 x 120 cm- 2023
6-From ashes to flight- acrylic on copper-120x63x88cm- 2024
7-The End of The Game-mixed media-100 x 112x 55cm-2024 2024
8-In pursuit of home- acrylic on canvas-70 x 50 cm-2024
9-the story of turquoise land-acrylic on canvas-60x60cm-2024.