About Marjan
Marjan Najafi
I am an Iranian-American artist who was born in Iran and moved to the US in 2014. My love for art and painting dates back to the early years of my life when I learned to use art to express my feelings and world views.
Painting and drawing of still-life objects, came to me instinctively. My Khayyam-like (Persian Poet) view of the world, birth, life and death, inspired me to grow and develop a great deal of interest in abstract paintings.
My love for abstract painting bloomed after I learned and experienced various painting styles such as Classic, Impressionism, Surrealism, Mixed-Media etc. Soon I realized abstract is the main style for expressing my inner feelings and emotions. An artistic creation, whether ignited by a personal idea or an inspiration, is like looking through a window to my inner-self, where a piece of my personality or emotion is clearly visible.
Sometimes my inspiration comes from looking at paintings of other great painters like Egon Schiele, Goya, Cezanne and Jose Clemente which drown me in the ocean of creativity, in other times, an art lover's comment sparks a new idea, and sometime, I just have to dip the brush in the paint and start drawing on a white canvas and let the creativity flow from within.
My paintings are always mixed with uncertainties and questions of an inquisitive mind. Why are we born and what is the reason for our existance in this world and if death is the end, why do we conform to the worldly principles? Sometimes trying to understand this uncertainty and darkness gets so much out of my control that I have no choice but to draw it.
Painting is not a hobby for me; it is a way of life and a method for expressing my ideas, thoughts and feelings; which mainly deals with the questions of life, birth and death. The “who am I”, “what is life” and “how mortality affects human behavior” are my main concerns.
The interpreted world and its rules beside various perspectives have been keeping my mind preoccupied that I finally decided that the Abstract is the best style for expressing my points of view; because it is not only amplifying my imagination and feelings, but also allowing more open interpretation and includes some kind of dynamism and freshness within.
Human captivity whether internal or external, the phenomenon of suffering, cruelty, oppression and suppression are the main subjects in my paintings and have a dominant presence in my works. The world is a question mark to me and I try to illustrate it through painting.