For me, collage is a way of gathering the scattered fragments of life and memory.
In this body of work, I explore how memories—especially those born of migration, longing, and unspoken love
My portraits and self-portraits are explorations of the human face
Jila Mannani is an Iranian-born artist based in Boston, with over two decades of experience in abstract figurative painting and mixed media. Her work explores the quiet tensions between memory, body, and belonging — shaped by the emotional landscapes of migration, love, and loss. With a background in geology and a deep connection to Persian poetry, especially the existential reflections of Omar Khayyam, Jila weaves layers of muted tones and tactile surfaces to create visual poems. Her figures often emerge and dissolve within the canvas — fragmented, searching, vulnerable — like memories half-remembered. Each painting is a vessel for what cannot be said aloud: the silences between words, the weight of exile, the ache of absence. Through abstraction, she seeks not to describe, but to evoke — to open a space where the viewer may find their own echoes. She has exhibited in Iran, Italy, and across the United States. Her recent exhibitions include LabCentral in Cambridge, Cambridge Art Association, Gallery 263, and
