ARTIST Jila Mannani

My paintings are born from the quiet intersection of memory and body — where the traces of love, distance, and time dissolve into layers of color and silence. Each work unfolds like a page from an invisible diary: fragments of forgotten gestures, echoes of distant places, and whispers of those who once were. I paint to remember what cannot be told — the unspeakable tenderness of departure, the ache of belonging, the poetry of what remains unseen. Through abstraction and subtle figuration, I search for presence within absence, for the shimmer between being and vanishing. My palette moves in muted tones — soft pinks, faded greens, burnt sienna, and grey-blue horizons — colors that breathe of memory, erosion, and resilience. Collage, wax, and layered acrylics allow me to build surfaces like skin: fragile yet enduring. Having lived between Iran, Italy, and now Boston, I carry within me the shifting landscapes of migration and passage — both inner and outer. My work does not describe these journeys; it embodies them. It is a conversation between past and present, between what we lose and what we find in the act of remembering. For me, painting is not about depicting the world but unveiling its echoes — the ones that live beneath words, within silence, and inside the pulse of every color.