Untitled I

Swedish-Iranian painter Sofia Pashaei creates figurative paintings that bring together Art Deco portraiture, Qajar painting and her experience between Swedish and Iranian cultures. Her precisely composed figures recall the stylised elegance of Tamara de Lempicka, while drawing on the flatness, symmetry and ornament of Persian portraiture.

Working with muted tones, geometric compositions and a recurring “Persian Blue,” Pashaei uses portrait painting to address memory, migration and cultural inheritance. Her work combines the restraint she associates with Sweden with visual references to her Iranian heritage, developing a distinctive contemporary approach to diasporic portraiture.