Welcome

JILA Art Gallery

Welcome to

Studio 405A

Collage

For me, collage is a way of gathering the scattered fragments of life and memory.

Abstract

In this body of work, I explore how memories—especially those born of migration, longing, and unspoken love

Portrait

My portraits and self-portraits are explorations of the human face

ARTIST Jila Mannani

My work moves through layers of memory, emotion, and time — from abstraction to collage, from love to irony. Each series speaks a different dialect of the same inner language: the language of presence and absence, of what remains after love, loss, or laughter. In my abstracts, color becomes breath — a meditation on the invisible. In collages, torn papers remember what paint forgets — fragments of home, belonging, and displacement finding new form. In How to Love, tenderness and pain intertwine; it is not a guide, but a confession — of what it means to remain open when everything asks you to close. And in the Pink Panther series, irony meets affection; the soft pink becomes both mask and mirror, revealing the fragile courage of being human. Across all of them, I explore how memory inhabits the body — how we carry our stories in texture, color, and the quiet space between gestures. Perhaps every painting is a question disguised as a form, a way to ask again and again: If love and memory are what keep us human, what happens when both begin to fade?

To order my works please let me know