Bijan's

Marlene Lees

I work in a loose, gestural and emotive style, exploring the tension between focus and defocus, detail and abstraction. This tension allows the subject to breathe beyond the canvas. Inspired by colour, portraiture, and flowers, I use bold contrasts and unblended brushstrokes. Through shifts between colour contrasts and wet and dry strokes, my work conveys nuanced emotional and cognitive expression.

Bahareh Safa

I am a Persian multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in the UK. I specialise in Fine Art Photography and graduated in Master of Fine Arts and Photography from the University for the Creative Arts in 2020. Throughout my career, my work has concerned the relationships between cultural history, memory and identity as a Persian migrant. I often adopt a poetic, metaphorical approach to explore the difficulties and confusion of visually representing and conserving the Persian identity through the medium of Photography and the photo collage technique to tell the stories. I am interested in society's perceptions of Persian cultural identity and migration. Through my practice, I shift the Persian identity out of contemporary political criticism into dynamic, static, symbolic and magical art and history of Persia (4500 years of civilisation and history), which is hidden behind the political news in Western society.