Bita Ghezelayagh (born 1966) is an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

-born artist who lives and works in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Best known for her sculptural,

felt Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...

ing work.

Biography

She was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and was brought up in Tehran. Ghezelayagh studied architecture at the

École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette The École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette is a public tertiary school located in Paris, France. It is placed under the supervision of the ministry for the Culture and the Communication (Direction of Architecture and the ...

. In 1994, she went to Tehran to work on a building restoration project for the Association of Iranian Calligraphers. She was also art director for three Iranian films. In 2003, she began studying the traditional craft of

-making. She had her first solo exhibition in Tehran five years later. This was followed by other solo exhibitions, including a touring exhibition in the United Kingdom. Ghezelayagh has participated in group shows at the

Sharjah Art Museum The Sharjah Art Museum is an art museum in the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.Sharjah Art Museum

the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
the Casa Árabe in
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts and the
San Antonio Museum of Art The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) is an art museum in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. The museum spans 5,000 years of global culture. The museum is housed in the historic former Lone Star Brewery (1886) on the Museum Reach of the San Antonio ...
. Her work is included in the collections of the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in London, the Farjam Foundation in
Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
and the Devi Art Foundation in
New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
. In 2011, she was included on the short list for the Jameel Prize for contemporary art. She is married to journalist
Christopher de Bellaigue Christopher de Bellaigue (born 1971 in London) is a journalist who has worked on the Middle East and South Asia since 1994. His work mostly chronicles developments in Iran and Turkey. Biography De Bellaigue, who attended Eton College, is from an ...
.

References

External links
* 1966 births Living people 20th-century women textile artists 20th-century textile artists 21st-century women textile artists 21st-century textile artists 20th-century Iranian women artists 21st-century Iranian women artists Iranian women sculptors Iranian contemporary artists Iranian sculptors Iranian textile artists {{Iran-artist-stub