Nafir emerged from the graffiti scene in Tehran in the early 2010s, when painting in public space was — and remains — a political act. His early work was stencil-based, anonymously placed, and often removed within hours.
In 2018 he began working on Persian carpets as a deliberate provocation: the carpet is a symbol of domestic femininity, of women's invisible labour, of inherited culture. Painting portraits of women onto those surfaces inverted the silence embedded in the object.
Nafir's work has been exhibited in Tehran, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London. He currently splits his time between Iran and Europe.
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