Marjan Seyedin

Odyssey of the Elephant #1, enhanced with gouache, by Marjan Seyedin

2024

Marjan Seyedin is an Iranian artist born in 1979, who splits her time between Paris and Southern California. She works primarily in printmaking and drawing. Her prints have been awarded numerous prizes in France. After obtaining a master's degree in graphic design at Tehran's Azad University, Marjan Seyedin moved to France in 2003. After graduating from the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg, she obtained her PhD in Plastic Arts in 2017 from Strasbourg's Marc Bloc University. She has taken part in three artistic residencies: the Dufraine Foundation (French Vexin), thanks to a scholarship from the Academy of Fine Arts, in China at the Guanlan Printmaking base, and then in Spain, at the Casa de Velázquez - French Academy in Madrid, in 2015-2016. Marjan's work was awarded the 2007 Grav'x prize in Paris, as well as the 2010 Pierre Cardin prize of the Academy of Fine Arts. She has also taken part in several solo and group exhibitions in France, Iran and the United States. After a solo exhibition in 2017 at the Shirin Gallery, Tehran (Iran), Marjan Seyedin held her first solo exhibition in France in 2018 at the Galerie Documents 15, Paris. In her works, the animal presence is essential and provides an allegorical representation for mankind. This is especially true for the owl, which symbolized wisdom in Greek and Roman traditions relating to Athena and Minerva. Marjan has a contemporary and poetic reinterpretation of classical engraving techniques, mostly etching, aquatint and drypoint.