Niloufar Mahmoudian

MA in Illustration, University of Tehran

Collector: Amirbahador Bayat

This series was actually for my class in university, named “New and Old Illustration”. The start of this project was since September 2021, and it took a year to be completed. In fact, what had to be done for this project was to choose an old story and then, for its illustration, refer to a period in the art history of Iran or the world, and using that style and getting inspired by that historical period and Combining it with new visual methods and our own personal style, reach a new illustration.
For this series, I chose the “Romance of Warqa and Gulshah”, as I had seen it a lot in the miniatures and different schools. This story was very old and unknown, and so I was encouraged to illustrate it. I decided to work on it in the style of Iran’s art history, and because of my interest in the schools of miniature, I considered it as well. Among the existing schools, the Harat School caught my attention. At first, I chose those parts of the story that created a visual space for me, and then I started drawing the characters. I made the compositions, and finally illustrated them with a self-made technique mixed of trafared and collage.