What Happens When You Stop Trying to Control the Work?

This conversation with Nazanin Moradi opens a window onto a practice shaped by movement, study, and an agile way of thinking through materials. Born in Iran and now based in London, she moves between painting, digital work, performance, and costume making, treating each medium as a way to explore how forms shift and dissolve. In this interview, she talks about her process with clarity and calm, describing how she builds a painting through layers of tone, gesture, and transparency until it begins to move on its own. The conversation is about rhythm, transition, and the point where things stop being separate and start to merge.

Nazanin shares how her journey began when her mother sent her to a painting class as a child, a moment that opened a path she has followed ever since. Later studies in graphic design and archaeology gave her a sense of structure and time, both of which still shape how she works. After completing her MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts in 2016, she continued to develop a practice that crosses disciplines and resists stillness. She talks about how she knows when something is working, when form, colour, and texture begin to connect in a way that feels natural, and how she listens to that rhythm as she moves between canvases.

What stands out is how grounded her approach is. There is no separation between her life and her work; the details of her day, the movement of light, or a passing sound can all find their way into her process. She works by paying attention to small shifts, letting materials, the body, and the space around her guide her. When she speaks about the future, she does so with openness rather than certainty. She wants her paintings to keep changing, to keep breathing. For her, it is enough if the work makes someone pause and notice a subtle change in how they see.

Her advice to emerging artists is simple but steady: keep working, keep testing ideas, and don’t be afraid of mistakes. They are part of what keeps the process alive. Listen to how materials respond, how movement alters what you make, and how each moment in the studio can open into something new.

Nazanin Moradi is an Iranian-born, London-based artist working across oil painting, digital media, and performance. She completed her MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL, in 2016. Her work has since been exhibited widely in the UK, Europe, West Asia, and the United States. Moradi’s practice explores the fluid relationship between body, form, and space. Through a process that moves between digital painting, oil painting, body painting and performance, she examines how movement can dissolve boundaries and create new states of perception. Her layered works and dreamlike compositions evoke a sense of transformation, as images drift between presence and disappearance, inviting viewers into a rhythm of continual change.

1.  How did you get started in your art career?   

My journey began in childhood, when my mum sent me to a painting class. That gesture opened something in me. Later, I studied graphic design in school, and then archaeology at university, but I eventually left that path to return to painting. When I entered Fine Art, I realised how naturally all those experiences connected, design taught me structure, archaeology gave me a sense of impermanence and trace, and painting became the space where everything came together.

2. When you’re creating something new, what makes you pause and say, this is working?

When I’m creating something new, I know it’s working when everything starts to click, when composition, colour, form, and texture begin to speak to each other. There’s a rhythm that builds, and I can feel it. Sometimes a drawing or brushstroke doesn’t land the way I want at first, but I don’t back off. I keep pushing, layering, adjusting, and trusting that the moment will come. Other times, I realise a piece isn’t ready or isn’t taking the shape I imagined. When that happens, I set it aside and let my energy move to another canvas. I usually work on a few at once, following where the work needs me. There’s always a turning point where intention and instinct align perfectly. The work starts moving through me rather than from me, that’s when I know it’s alive, and that’s when I know it’s working.

3. How do you balance your personal life with your art career?

There isn’t really a line between my life and my art; they flow into each other constantly. The way I move through the world, the things I notice, the moments I feel deeply —everything finds its way into my work. It’s how I experience life, how I process and understand it. Even the most minor details —a shadow falling across a street, a rhythm in a conversation, a circle in a building, a dream in my sleep, a fleeting emotion —can become part of what I make. My art breathes with me, and I breathe with it, so there’s no need to balance them; they are the same.

4. How do you envision the future of your art and its impact on the world?

I don’t know exactly where my work will go, and I like that. I want it to keep changing, the same way movement changes what we see and feel. I’m drawn to that uncertainty, to the unknown, to letting the work find its own rhythm over time. What matters to me is that the paintings stay honest. I want them to keep a sense of energy and openness, to feel alive in some way. If they can make someone stop and sense something shifting, even for a moment, that’s enough.

5. What mediums and techniques do you primarily work with?  

My work spans multiple media, from costume-making and performance studies to oil painting, depending on how I want to express an idea. I follow the process wherever it leads, whether through drawing, digital sketches, or hands-on materials. Each medium shapes the work in its own way, and I enjoy the dialogue that emerges between materials, my body, and the studio space.

6.  Do you have any parting words of wisdom for our readers or aspiring artists?

Keep going, keep experimenting, and don’t worry about getting it right. Some of the best moments come from mistakes, surprises, or just letting the work lead you. Pay attention to how materials, your body, and the space around you talk to each other, that’s where the magic happens. And remember, nothing stays still and neither should your art.

Nazanin Moradi’s work follows the movement of change itself. Through painting, performance, and digital media, she explores how forms shift, blur, and find new shapes in motion. Her pieces seem to hover between presence and absence, showing how nothing ever stays still for long.

From her journey, we learn that making art is not about control or certainty but about trust—trusting the process, the materials, and the time it takes for something to take shape. Her story, from childhood painting classes in Iran to her life and practice in London, shows how every experience can become part of the work. What she leaves us with is a sense that creativity grows through movement and attention, through the simple act of watching things change and letting them unfold.

To learn more about Nazanin, visit the links below.

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