Hana Moazzeni is a British-Iranian visual artist best known for her exquisitely drawn work.
Her passion for storytelling and the physicality of books weaves throughout her art, honouring the 'book' as a treasured object, life bursting from its pages. Shaped by her Iranian heritage in how she sees and tells stories, she melds the intricate details and layered symbolism of Persian miniatures with her own contemporary reality. Threads of Persian tales, myth and poetry permeate together with her personal narrative, taken from intimate and raw journal writings to create new stories that form the subject matter for her paintings. Through vivid storytelling and rich characterisation, Moazzeni uses art as an implement to study and explore both the seen and unseen world around her.
Taking a very intuitive and free approach to materiality, Moazzeni uses a mixture of oil paint, pastels, pencils and water colour alongside her more traditional handmade paint from earth, minerals, plant-based pigments and gold leaf. For Moazzeni, connecting with the earth and taking part in the alchemical process of pigment-making brings a raw energy to the work. She often sources her paper from Iran, working closely with a traditional paper-maker, adjusting recipes according to the requirements of the painting. Her paper is handmade from a variety of combinations of mulberry, silk, rice and hemp, igniting a sense of nostalgia for ancient manuscripts.
After studying traditional Persian music and painting for six years in Iran, Moazzeni was awarded the Albukhary scholarship to study a Masters degree in Traditional Arts at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London. Graduating with distinction (2017) she received the Ciclitira Prize for outstanding work. Her work is represented in numerous international collections.
Moazzeni lives and works in London.