Negar Nazari demands that the audience interpret her work for themselves. For her, once a piece exists, it belongs to the viewer.
Figure 1. A woman’s head floating with eyes closed above a glass box containing a bedroom.
“If I were able to convey my message through words, I wouldn’t draw it at all! In fact, I only see it as my responsibility to create the work, and once it comes into being, it exists independently from me. It builds its own relationship with the audience—one in which I am no longer involved. So what matters is not what my message was, nor what the work is ‘supposed’ to express, but rather how the audience chooses to engage with it and what meaning they draw from it.”
Figure 2. An arm crushed beneath a stack of empty suitcases.
“Sometimes going deep into emotions means confronting things that require great courage, things that leave you vulnerable. And this intensity of thoughts and feelings often manifests physically as well. For example, I’ve noticed that recently, while working on certain themes in my drawings, my hand starts to tremble—because controlling my emotions and spirit becomes overwhelming.”
Figure 3. A large-headed, voluminous nude woman resting her head on a rock.
“Perhaps this insistence on drawing nude women—most of them plus-size—is a kind of defiance I have always carried toward the environment around me when I was in Iran. Over time, they found their permanent way into my illustrations. Since in Iran it was not permitted to depict the full nude figure, I always felt the urge to resist that limitation. At the same time, I have a deep aversion to imposed taboos and dictated standards of beauty, which is why these figures inevitably emerge in my work.”
Figure 4. A cactus, a rock, and bedposts.
“My works are more like short chats with myself and the world around me, exploring different topics.”
Core Themes in Her Practice
Liberation through Critique
Art, like people, is open to interpretation. Critique frees us from clinging to intention and lets us see what else is possible.
Defiance of Taboos
Her insistence on drawing nude women challenges cultural prohibitions and narrow ideals of beauty.
Process as Vulnerability
Even her trembling hand becomes part of the work—proof that courage and fear coexist in creation.
Connection Beyond Identity
Though Iranian by background, she resists tying her art to nationality. She wants us to meet the work on its own terms.
Influences
Masoud Keshmiri
Farshid Mesghali
Nazari doesn’t want to tell us how to feel. She only asks that we look - maybe just a little longer than we normally would - and see what surfaces for each of us.
Her art reminds us that we ourselves are works in progress, subject to interpretation, shaped by both our inner lives and the world around us.
“If it could speak, it would be exactly me.” – Negar Nazari
