Opening Reception Thursday, July 17, 2025, 7-9pm.
ADVOCARTSY is proud to present Mokarrameh Ghanbari: A Solo Exhibition. Mokarrameh Ghanbari was a self-taught painter whose extraordinary vision emerged from the heart of northern Iran, where she lived her entire life in the village of Darikhaneh in Mazandaran Province. Born in 1928, Ghanbari had no formal training in art. Her creative journey began late in life, at the age of 63, when she spontaneously began to paint using natural dyes, discarded objects, and eventually poster paints—whatever materials she could find around her rural home. What followed was a luminous, deeply personal body of work that would position her as one of Iran’s most compelling outsider artists.
West Hollywood gallery located at 434 N La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles.
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Artist Biography
Born in Iran in 1928, Mokarrameh Ghanbari was a self-taught artist who began painting at the age of 61, embodying a deeply personal, imaginative and expressive style. She quickly produced a prolific body of work with a distinct visual language, rich with folkloric symbolism, spiritual motifs, and autobiographical elements. Ghanbari’s practice was so consuming, she even painted on the walls of her home when she ran out of paper.
Ghanbari became a defining artist of the Folk Art movement in Iran, and had her first exhibition at Seyhon Gallery, Tehran in 1995. Her paintings are characterized by bold, unrestrained colors and densely packed figures that convey a sense of movement, storytelling, and emotion. Inspired by Persian miniature painting, rural traditions, and her own dreams, Ghanbari’s works depict scenes of love, family, and nature interwoven with mystical and historical themes.
A central theme in Ghanbari’s art is the representation of women—often portrayed as strong, nurturing, and central to the unfolding stories in her compositions. As Ghanbari spent most of her life as a homemaker before discovering her passion for painting, her work reclaims a space for female narratives within the artistic canon, drawing from her personal experiences as a woman who defied societal expectations. Animals, angels, and mythical beings populate her paintings, creating an enchanting interplay between reality and fantasy.
Before her passing in 2005, the artist participated in ten other exhibitions and was awarded the jury prize at the Roshd Film Festival. In 2001, she was awarded Woman of the Year at the 12th International Conference of Iranian Women’s Studies Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition, she was named the Female Painter of 2001 by the Swedish National Museum.
