Roya Akhavan Shahabi

Hybrid figures emerge throughout Roya Akhavan’s work, hovering between vegetal, animal, and symbolic states. These forms resist fixed identity, echoing natural processes in which boundaries remain fluid and porous. Interlacing lines weave through the compositions like roots, neural pathways, or migratory routes, acting as connective tissue that binds individual elements into larger, interdependent systems. Akhavan’s paintings represent an underlying map of relationships that sustains visible form.

Roya Akhavan’s work explores repetition as a living, generative force. Across layered compositions filled with recurring forms, intricate linework, and bold colors, her paintings investigate how organic life—plants, animals, bodies, and ecosystems—interacts with systems of order, memory, and ritual. Motifs repeat but never resolve into sameness; instead, each iteration shifts subtly, suggesting growth, mutation, and the passage of time.