Interview with Media Jamshidi

Tell us about how you got to where you are now.

I started drawing as a child at early age. I often lost myself in my sketchbook drawing cartoon characters and flowers. Later on, I attended painting workshops. I only started painting seriously about 7 years ago with oil painting and chalk. In 2016, I started exploring new techniques and mediums – that is when I fell in love with watercolor. I love it because of the soft shades and romantic colors.

How and when did you start exploring yourself creatively through drawing?

I started painting as a child. It was so early on in my life that I can’t remember when I actually started. I was self-taught and started with coloring pencils, painting still life – I mainly painted flowers and birds. Over time, I realized that I really love painting flowers because the delicate nature calms my soul and I feel that floral paintings reflect my emotions and feelings very well.

What was your starting point and inspiration behind the work you developed for Monarte? What did your creative process look like?

The creative process for this specific piece was very similar to what my creative process usually is. I get inspiration from the nature around me. I live very close to the city park and everyday I take a walk in it. I always have my camera with me and end up photographing flowers that I fall in love with and feel like I might want to turn into paintings in the future. That’s what happened here: I photograph a group of flowers I felt were really beautiful and used that photograph to work from. I altered the composition a bit – I started with a sketch in pencil and colored it as soon as I was happy with the composition.

I wanted to convey what I always try to do with my work: calm and soothing beauty through nature. I felt like this would be great to have on a dress that people could wear and it would help them feel this way.

"Soul Flowers"

This dress is born from Media’s soul and from what soothes it the most and makes it happy: nature – specifically, the wonderful flowers she finds every day while taking her daily inspiration walks in the garden near her house. It is a dress created to bring serenity and beauty to whomever wears it. To wear and spread it.