Laleh Kamalian

Laleh Kamalian on her path to becoming an artist:
‘My artistic journey is an interesting one, which continues to surprise me whenever I think about it. For many years I worked as a research scientist and like many others, lived with the underlying feeling that I did not necessarily ‘enjoy’ my job. In the winter of 2014, at the age of 48, I was ‘forced’ to attend a beginner’s art class, in which I was the only one who had never held a pencil to draw. I quickly realised that not only did I enjoy drawing but also was quite good at it. As a result, I started drawing as a hobby, and a nice distraction from my daily job.

In 2016 was forced to stay in a hospital bed for three months, where I passed the time by drawing portraits of almost all the staff who were looking after me. The feedback I received, the chronic illness I was diagnosed with, and having enough time to think deeply about my life made me realise that for me art had become the only thing worth spending time on.

I made myself part-time as soon as I was discharged from the hospital with the aim of becoming a full-time artist as soon as I could. Since then I have worked hard training as an artist, exploring the world of art through a variety of mediums and methods, my favourite being coloured pencil. Over the last few years, my artwork has been exhibited in a variety of exhibitions, published in art magazines, and has become ‘the love of my life’.
I am very lucky to have found art and will never look back.’