Rose Rezaei
Rose Rezaei is a painter whose work considers freedom, inner strength, self-reflection, and hope. After years of working across oil paint, charcoal, watercolor, pastel, acrylic, pottery, and plaster sculpture, she found a distinct visual language in coffee. The medium now anchors two ongoing bodies of work, Freedom and The Untamed.
Rezaei began painting as a teenager, when she became absorbed by the possibilities of oil paint and took professional art courses. Her academic background in Social Sciences and Anthropology also shaped her interest in people, cultures, and the ways individuals respond to their circumstances. While realist and hyperrealist oil painting remained her primary passion for many years, coffee gradually became an equally important material.
She first encountered coffee as an art medium during a one-day workshop led by Adak Jamshidzadeh. The workshop emphasized pouring coffee and finding images within the resulting stains, but Rezaei approached the material differently. She preferred to begin with a visual idea and develop it through the coffee, testing different types, applications, and techniques until she established her own process.
Coffee’s fluid behavior remains part of that process. Rezaei begins with an intention, but allows the painting to develop in response to the material. The work balances control with unpredictability, using the stains, tonal changes, and movement of coffee as active elements rather than incidental effects.
Freedom was the first series in which Rezaei felt that her medium, subject, and artistic voice fully aligned. Painted with coffee, the works focus on women living with adversity, limitation, and change. Rather than depicting a single story, they consider the inner strength, contemplation, and hope that can emerge through difficult experience.
Many of the women in the series have hidden or obscured faces. This choice is intended to preserve both the specificity and the universality of lived experience. By withholding individual identity, Rezaei allows each figure to represent more than one person and invites viewers to bring their own memories and emotions to the work. “I want the paintings to create space for reflection rather than provide a fixed narrative,” she says.
The series is grounded in women’s experiences but speaks more broadly to endurance, solitude, and the search for strength during periods of difficulty. Its reception confirmed the direction of the work, as collectors, galleries, art professionals, and viewers connected with the emotional atmosphere of the paintings.
Rezaei’s second major series, The Untamed, addresses freedom through wild animals. Horses have long interested her, particularly for the way they embody movement, instinct, power, and independence. Unfenced Echoes, her first animal painting made with coffee, was an important beginning. The original was acquired by a collector in Washington, D.C., and reproductions were later collected as well.
That work became the foundation for The Untamed. While the subjects differ from those in Freedom, the two series remain linked. One considers freedom as an internal human experience, while the other looks to animals as images of a more instinctive and uncompromising form of it.
Rezaei worked for many years in a traditional office environment before fully committing to art. Her husband’s encouragement gave her confidence to take that step and pursue painting professionally. She continues to develop both series while expanding her exhibition opportunities and seeking new audiences for the work.
For Rezaei, success is not limited to sales, awards, or exhibitions. It is found when a painting creates a genuine emotional response or gives a viewer room for reflection. Her work returns to a simple premise: even under difficult conditions, people can turn inward and find strength without giving up the freedom to remain true to themselves.
