Work in Progress:

Koushna Navabi

Finishing new works for Frieze London that turn geological maps and found tree trunks into sites of metamorphosis, Koushna Navabi unravels the personal and political histories of her practice

Koushna Navabi's works in progress. Courtesy: the artist

‘For years I was terrified to make political work,’ says Koushna Navabi. For the Iran-born, London-based artist, acts of knitting, stitching and weaving were personal solace from the external horrors of the Iranian Revolution, from which she escaped as a teenager. Navabi was training as a ballet dancer in 1979 when her school shut down and she was forced to flee the country alone. ‘All I had was this bodily memory of dancing,’ she says, ‘and I think I carried that into my work.’  

Originally self-taught, Navabi moved to London in 1993 to complete an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. She works across knitting, textiles, painting, sculpture and mixed media, often presenting multidisciplinary works alongside each other. These materials and processes carry different histories and associations with labour, the domestic, repetition, cultural heritage and transformation.   

Over the years, Navabi has developed a highly personal and intellectual approach, but the power of her work lies in its grey areas. To understand her work is to slowly unravel it. ‘I don’t want the work to be solely political; that’s just one of the layers.’  

As she completes two new works for Frieze London, presented as part of a group with Don Gallery, Navabi discusses transformation as a form of survival, her fascination with ancient mythology and her own process of metamorphosis. 

Interview by Izzy Bilkus, Frieze London

Izzy Bilkus Tell me about your new work for Frieze London. 

Koushna Navabi I’m exhibiting a painting and a sculpture. The painting is a section of the seismic map of the Persian Gulf, which I’ve painted to look like it’s knitted. The sculpture is an anthropomorphic figure made from found tree trunks, Persian kilim, stitches and polished bronze. These works bring craft and canon in the same breath. Both works sound quite different, but there’s a narrative of transformation that ties them together. 

IB Transformation is a recurrent theme in your practice. How have these works undergone that process?  

KN To me, knitting is the language of labour and care. Painting stitches on the canvas transforms the surface of the work. In using that language of care, the piece quiets all the chaos in the Persian Gulf. We're all aware of its history with colonialism and industrialization, but being Iranian, it takes on another significance for me. Having said that, I don’t want the work to be solely political; that’s just one of the layers, just as in the work there are layers of the ocean, the earth and the paint on the canvas.  

The sculpture is made from a tree trunk which I found locally. When nature disregards them, I transform them. The process is a kind of metamorphosis. I create anthropomorphic figures from them, which typically resemble the female body, but this sculpture resembles both male and female forms, which I love because it speaks to the idea of fluidity between the human body and nature. I think all our identities are fluid.

IB The way you work feels fluid as well. You often mix materials and processes that have different histories and associations. 

KN Outside the political context of these works, there’s an enquiry into the hierarchy of materials and techniques. The sculpture features polished bronze, which hints at sculpture throughout the canon of art history. Historically, knitting was not seen as a ‘real’ art form, so I’ve transformed the stitches into oil painting. I’m bringing both methods to the surface as equal.  

IB Do you see these works as the next step in your process of metamorphosis? 

KN They feel like a continuation of my practice. The concept of introducing textile into the world of fine art has come a long way since I started my knitted paintings around 30 years ago.  

IB What’s your personal connection with knitting? 

KN When I was a teenager during the Iranian Revolution, there were curfews outside; you could hear gunshots and screaming. It was incredibly frightening. The act of knitting kept me calm, and I still carry that with me. That’s not apparent in my work, but it lies underneath the surface. 

I’m also interested in knitting in literature. In Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Madame Defarge knits during the French Revolution, turning women’s labour into a form of political power. In The Odyssey, Penelope weaves a burial shroud during the day and unpicks it overnight, using it as a form of control of time. In representing knitting in my paintings, I’m inviting the viewer to unravel it and look at the work more carefully. 

IB Would you say that’s a priority – creating a slowed-down viewing of your work? 

KN I don’t want viewers to have an immediate reaction or solution when looking at my work. I want them to spend as much time with it as I’ve spent on every stroke of paint and every stitch. I’m hoping that will prompt people to slow down and digest what they’re looking at – to understand things on a deeper level somehow. Maybe I'm asking for too much at once, but, as an artist, you always hope that people question things the way you do. If you’re infatuated by something and you can relay even an ounce of that to someone, then that’s a success. 

IB Is the time it takes you to complete a work just as important as the finished piece? 

KN Yes, especially with my paintings as they’re extremely laborious. They take months to complete and every stitch is painstakingly painted.  

IB What is it about the concept of transformation that appeals to you?  

KN I’ve always been interested in metamorphosis and ancient ideas about the human body becoming something else. In Greek mythology, Daphne is relentlessly pursued by Apollo until she is transformed into a tree to escape him. In pre-Islamic Persian mythology, there’s a character called Mashyān, who grows into a woman from a tree. These transformations are about the female body under scrutiny. These stories have been part of our lives for centuries and they’re still relevant today. 

I also see transformation as a form of survival. It can be violent at times, like a cry from the body. All these ideas are contained in my sculptures. 

IB When have you had to transform to survive? 

KN This idea about fluid identities applies to who I am as a person and an artist. Transnational and bicultural identities exist in people like me who have migrated, not by choice but by force. We’ve had to assimilate into wherever we’ve landed, and that is somewhat metamorphic. My work echoes my cultural heritage but also has a universality to it. It explores fears, anxieties and desires that don’t necessarily stem from one specific culture.  

IB How do you imagine your work might transform in the future?  

KN I think I will always be drawn to the ideas I work with now, but I like the idea of working in a larger scale. But the concept of fluidity is one thing I want to keep coming back to. 

IB You’ve spoken previously about wanting to ‘de-Orientalize’ your work and ‘humanize’ it instead. 

KN I’m conflicted about what I would call this idea now, as we’re dealing with a kind of neo-Orientalism. I hope one day that the human aspect of my work will be in the foreground, rather than having it take a backseat so my work can be classified solely as political. I’m not denying my cultural heritage or history, but I think there’s an ingrained need in the West to categorize things immediately and to form hierarchies without looking at the totality of the work. It’s important to look at what is in front of us. 

IB You left Iran at 16, when you were training to be a ballet dancer. How important was visual art to you during that time? 

KN The only exposure I had to the art world was a visual arts class I had at school. When I left Iran, I moved to New York for high school. At that time, the Iran hostage situation was going on. I was alone and an illegal immigrant so I couldn't get a formal arts education. All I had was this bodily memory of dancing, and I think I carried that into my sculptures. I was knitting when my school shut down in Iran, and I kept that skill with me. I managed to pay my rent in New York from knitting and working with textiles. It was a tough time but it taught me how to survive. I was self-taught until I applied for a postgraduate course at Goldsmiths in London. 

IB Do you feel like your practice would have taken a different turn if you’d had access to an arts education earlier on? 

KN That’s a question I often ask myself. I look at my artist friends working across video, photography and other mediums, and I’ve just never felt comfortable working like that. I’m not sure what would have changed for me. Maybe I would have become a performance artist. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I went to Juilliard to continue studying ballet. But it’s that fluidity and change that ends up making us who we are.  

IB With the current war in Iran, has your relationship to making work about Iran changed since you fled during the revolution? 

KN Yes, for a long time before the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022, I was terrified to make any political work. I thought it would endanger my family back in Iran. When the uprising happened, and girls in their teens were taking to the streets to demand freedom, I felt the lump in my throat that had been there since 1979 start to come out. That changed something in me, and I started to make work that was very political. 

IB Those political works are also incredibly personal. How do you know when a personal experience needs to come to the surface?  

KN It’s very difficult because I don’t want the work to be didactic or one-dimensional. When something happens that is so heart-wrenching and unbearable to digest, I don’t always know what to do with it. Sometimes I’ll make sketches in the studio and keep them to myself. Maybe at some point in the future I’ll return to them.  

A lot of my work comments on the politics surrounding Iran, but aren’t necessarily about Iran itself. I try to shed light on the involvement of the rest of the world in Iranian politics, and about how the world has become what it is today. The painting I’ve created for Frieze is one way of doing this, because I’m talking about wider issues of colonialism, the economy and power structures. It isn’t solely scrutinizing a regime – it’s hinting at foreign power in the Middle East. I try to politically question things as opposed to stating them.  

IB How do you feel that living in London has affected your practice?  

KN I landed here in the middle of the YBA era, which was such an exciting and liberating time, but I did still feel limited and frustrated in some ways. But I embraced that cultural fluidity. 

IB Tell me about your studio.  

KN My studio is in north-west London and was designed in the 1970s by Tom Kay. He was a communist and wanted to create a space where artists could live and work. I’ve been here for about 15 years. I spend hours and hours here, and I love working with my hands.  

IB Do you ever find the materials you work with to be unforgiving? Do they ever resist what you’re trying to do to them? 

KN Chemical materials like epoxy resin often misbehave, so I tend to stay away from them. I often work with organic materials and old Persian kilims that are falling apart. I cut them into pieces and stitch them back together. They’re very cooperative.  

IB How do you know when a work is finished?  

KN My paintings are planned in advance, so I know where to start and end. But my sculptures can be challenging because there’s always that urge to add another element to them. Before I know a work is finished, I’ll live with it for a few months. As an artist, these pieces are always in your head. You wake up with them, you go to sleep with them. And there’s a friction between what’s in your mind’s eye and what your hands bring out. Sometimes they’re very different. But that’s part of the work in itself. 

Further Information

Frieze London and Frieze Masters The Regent’s Park, 14 – 18 October 2026. 

See images here

Via Frieze