About the artist

Shirin Jabalameli (born 1967, Tehran) is an Iranian painter, writer, translator, and photographer. With a background in political science and nearly three decades of artistic practice, she has developed her own intuitive visual language, which led to the founding of Apranikism—a unique style rooted in improvisation, mythology, and creative resistance.

In 2023, she published Apranik, a book featuring 158 selected works from more than 1,200 paintings in this style. Her works often engage with themes such as memory, the collective unconscious, and cultural archetypes, and alongside acrylics, she makes use of ephemeral and unconventional materials such as coffee, charcoal, and cracked textures.

She is also the author of the literary book Crows Rarely Laugh (2019) and the photo collection 101 Moments (2023). In 2025, Crows Rarely Laugh was released in English translation on the global Kobo platform, while the bilingual book Twenty-Five Fell from the Frame became available in both Persian and English on the same platform. Her poems and paintings have been published in literary and art journals in the United States and the United Kingdom, further extending her multidisciplinary presence internationally.

ُShe is Nominated by Braided Way Magazine for the prestigious Pushcart Prize 2026 for her poem “The Lineage of Birds”, awarded annually to honor exceptional works published by small presses in the United States.

Jabalameli’s works have been exhibited in Iran, Europe, the United States, and Asia. She received “Artistic Achievement” certificates from the Luxembourg Art Museum in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

She is a member of the Society for the Development of Contemporary Visual Arts, the Iranian Art Credit Fund, and the High Council of Photography of Alborz Province.

Shirin Jabalameli continues to expand Apranikism as a philosophical and aesthetic path of resistance for our time, situating it at the intersection of painting, poetry, performance, and translation.