Leila Delfan is a visual artist whose practice operates between public space and the studio, examining the wall as a site where image, memory, and material conditions intersect.
Her work engages directly with architectural
surfaces, treating them not as neutral backgrounds but as active carriers of
time, erosion, and lived experience. Cracks, textures, and structural
irregularities become integral to the composition, allowing the image to emerge
from within the surface rather than being imposed upon it. Through this
approach, Delfan has contributed to a shift in contemporary Iranian mural
painting, expanding the role of the wall from a passive support to an active,
meaning-producing surface.
Through large-scale public murals, Delfan
investigates how images function within the urban environment—how they are
encountered, overlooked, and reabsorbed into the continuous flow of the city.
Her approach to figurative representation, particularly in portraiture, moves
away from fixed or monumental depictions toward more fragmented and
transitional states, introducing a distinct visual language within the context
of Iranian public art.
Alongside her public work, her studio practice
extends this investigation into more intimate and material forms. Using ceramic
and surface-based processes, she explores fragmentation, pressure, and
transformation, where the face and body become sites of tension between
visibility and concealment. These works do not depict fixed identities, but
rather suspended states shaped by internal and external forces.
At the core of her practice is the ongoing series Surface as Memory, a body of site-specific works that engages directly with the existing conditions of urban walls.
Drawing from a range of visual
traditions—including Persian miniature painting, archival imagery, and early
image-making practices—Delfan constructs layered visual fields that collapse
distinctions between past and present. Her work repositions historical visual
languages within contemporary contexts, allowing them to reappear through the
material and spatial conditions of the present.
Across both public and studio contexts, her
practice is unified by a sustained inquiry into how images inhabit surfaces,
and how those surfaces, in turn, shape perception, memory, and experience.
Recognition:
– Honorary Diploma, Tehran Urban Arts Biennial
– Award Trophy, Tehran Urban Arts Biennial