About Safoora Terani
Safoora Terani is a California-based Iranian-American artist and art educator whose work brings together figurative realism, Persian visual heritage, and expressive storytelling. Born and raised in Mashhad, Iran, she began drawing at age nine and entered formal training in traditional Persian miniature painting at fourteen. After immigrating to the United States in 1998, she earned an Associate Degree in Fine Arts from Santa Monica College.
Her paintings reflect her interest in people, nature, travel, memory, and cultural identity. She often begins with photographs she takes during her travels and transforms them into original oil paintings defined by rich color, fine detail, and a poetic atmosphere. Her work includes figurative, landscape, floral, and abstract subjects while exploring themes of beauty, resilience, hope, and human connection.
Safoora's Gallery
“Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Safoora's Story
Safoora’s artistic journey began in Iran, where her early training in Persian miniature painting gave her a lasting appreciation for composition, symbolism, pattern, color, and fine detail. After moving to the United States, her studies at Santa Monica College introduced her to a broader range of Western drawing and painting traditions.
Her work has been exhibited at Showcase Gallery in Irvine and the Mehregan Persian Festival of Autumn. In 2022, two of her paintings received first and second place awards at the Sunset Beach Art Festival. She has continued developing her practice through studies with figurative painter Joseph Todorovitch and painting retreats led by Costa Dvorezky in Menorca, Spain, and Tuscany, Italy.
Travel remains central to her creative process. Safoora works primarily from photographs she takes herself, translating personal observations of people, landscapes, atmosphere, and culture into paintings that preserve the emotional memory of a place or moment.
For more than 25 years, she has also taught drawing, painting, mixed media, printmaking, collage, and crafts to children and adults. Through art camps, studio workshops, and Sip & Paint gatherings, she has helped make art approachable and meaningful for people at different experience levels.
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Deep dive behind the scenes
