The city I love
This is a piece done in ink and colored pencil. Finished in May 2026, I used this drawing to process all the chaotic feelings I was feeling after moving away from Iran a couple of years ago and especially during these past months.
All throughout the blackout, I would screenshot any picture and video coming out of Iran, which sparked familiarity even if I had never been to the area depicted. My whole camera roll became screenshots of bombings and portraits of strangers younger and older than me.
Collecting all these images felt like a desperate way of doing something, but I was only able to make something of them through this drawing. By collaging some of the screenshots together over a painting by Gustav Klimt, I created a composition that made a new but still familiar landscape of my dear Tehran. This is my visual poem to the city I love, crushed by monsters from near and far.
The city I love
Kimia Seifi is a fine artist whose practice moves between painting and sculpture. She was raised in Iran and is currently based in California, where she continues her studies in the visual arts.
