The Fire We Become: A Painting for Iran's Women
October 04, 2026
Some paintings take weeks. This one took months — months of tiny, deliberate brushstrokes, of sitting with a subject too large and too tender to rush. "The Fire We Become" is very close to my heart. Every element in it was carefully chosen to speak, symbolically, of the change unfolding in Iran.
Four women, dancing free
At the heart of the painting, four women dance. Each is wrapped in fabric of a single color — green, white, red — the colors of the Iranian flag, reclaimed and reworn on their own terms.
They are helping each other unravel themselves from the confines of oppression. That is the detail that matters most to me: no one frees herself alone here. Hands reach for hands. Fabric loosens where another woman pulls.
They are still being blinded and suppressed by the ruling class — and yet they dance. They dance, and boldly fight to free themselves of the chains that hold them. Joy itself becomes the resistance.
The fire and the tree
The fire at the center is not destruction. It is a burning of the old so that new life can grow. And from that fire, a tree is blossoming — something beautiful and luscious and wild, rising exactly where the old world tried to end things.
Thirty birds, one Simorgh
Above the dancers, a great bird takes shape — but look closer and you'll see it is made of thirty birds. In Persian literature, the Simorgh ("si murgh," thirty birds) carries a famous truth: only by coming together can we reach the highest mountain peaks and accomplish our dreams. No single bird could make the journey. Together, they become something mythic.
Tehran, and the words on the scarf
The city in the background is Tehran, Iran's capital — the streets where this struggle is lived every day.
On the black scarf, written in Farsi, are the words: "My hair in the hands of the wind is an essential proof of my Freedom." I wanted the painting to carry a voice, not just an image — and those words say what the dancers' bodies already know.
From night into day
The sky moves from night to day across the canvas. It is my representation of the end of this dark time — a declaration that light is not only possible but inevitable, and that it is already coming.
This painting lives in my studio as the original, and as a museum-quality giclée art print — so its message can hang in homes far beyond mine.
Bring it home: The Fire We Become — Iranian Freedom Art Print