Mahsa Tehrani (b. 1983, Tehran) creates intricate, non-linear worlds that reimagine the visual traditions of Persian miniature. Her paintings draw on memory, myth, and collective imagination, often staging animals, spectral figures, and fantastical beings within lush, layered landscapes. At first pastoral and utopian, her works disclose subtle ruptures such as broken vessels, dying birds, and ecological disturbance that complicate their apparent harmony.
Figures dressed in white move across these shifting terrains like anonymous witnesses, timeless and placeless. Tehrani fragments narrative, refusing a single storyline, and instead builds a symbolic language that speaks to longing, migration, transformation, and the fragile coexistence of humans and other beings.
She studied Industrial Engineering at the University of Science and Culture, Tehran (B.A., 2006) before committing fully to painting. Her solo exhibitions include The Hunting Ground (Bavan Gallery, Tehran, 2022) and Memories of the Ocean Swim Meets (Bavan Gallery, Tehran, 2020). She has also participated in major group exhibitions such as Maximal Miniatures: Contemporary Art from Iran (Middle East Institute, Washington D.C., 2025), Invisible Walls (Pedrami Gallery, Antwerp, 2024), Event: Iranian Contemporary Art and Shifting Realities (London, 2023), and WILD DREAMS(Warehouse Gallery, Shanghai, 2022).