Iranian Artist Quotes

Marjane Satrapi

Sohrab Sepehri

Javad Alizadeh

If I were the type of artist that didn't care whether or not my works communicated with viewers then I wouldn't bother exhibiting them, I might as well stock them in a warehouse. But I do exhibit and I do care because I want to communicate back to the viewer what I've viewed. My paintings are inspired by my homeland's traditional spaces. My colors are the colors of monasteries and mosques, the color of ruins of Sassanid and Seljuq era, colors of Bazaars of Isfahan and Shiraz, and colors of northern-Iran's ceramics. I have sensed all these colors, forms and everything within my painting's frame from the viewer's own world.

Nothing's worse than saying goodbye. It's a little like dying.

Marjane Satrapi

The death of our close friends and relatives proves that how close the death is to us!

By contemplation I swear,
By the beginning of speech,
By the flight of a dove from the mind.
A word is in the cage