Nicolas Mehdi Pour Vahid’s paintings explore childhood memory, melancholy, and the fragile boundary between imagination and reality. Born in Tours, France, in 1995, the Franco-Iranian painter lives and works in Paris. His artistic perspective is shaped by his father’s devotion to Persian literature and poetry and his mother’s work restoring religious icons, an early influence that continues to inform the stillness and symbolism of his compositions. After studying design at La Martinière in Lyon, Pour Vahid developed a practice that grew from narrative drawing and illustration into a deeply personal approach to painting. His work also draws on manga, Japanese literature, and the atmospheric landscapes of Romantic and Symbolist painting. Through solitary figures, mysterious animals, and softly shifting colors, he creates dreamlike worlds that preserve the wonder of childhood while acknowledging the melancholy of growing up.

“My childhood memories are an important source of my work.”

In his Paris studio, Pour Vahid builds his paintings through a careful dialogue between drawing, color, and the physical qualities of the painted surface. His process is informed by traditional painting techniques, including preparing canvases himself and studying historical methods of applying and binding pigments. Working with oil and, in some paintings, tempera, he layers colors across the canvas to create subtle transitions and softly defined contours. Rather than relying on sharp outlines or elaborate details, he uses simplified forms and delicate shifts in color to give his figures a quiet, almost suspended presence. Forests, mountains, and distant horizons become expanses of color that surround his subjects, transforming the landscape into an emotional environment rather than a literal depiction of place.

His background in illustration and graphic storytelling remains visible in the economy of his lines, while his family's connection to religious art informs the contemplative stillness of his figures. Together, these influences create a visual language that feels intimate, poetic, and timeless.

“My paintings are an attempt at repair.”

In The Weeping Bird (2025), Pour Vahid places a solitary figure within a luminous natural world shaped by childhood recollection, literary imagination, and the memory of religious icons. The painting brings together two recurring elements of his practice: the emotional presence of an isolated figure and the enveloping atmosphere of a dreamlike landscape. Rather than separating the subject from its surroundings, the composition connects the figure to the natural world, creating a scene that feels suspended between a remembered experience and an imagined place.

The title introduces an additional note of vulnerability and melancholy. A bird, often associated with movement and freedom, becomes linked to the language of grief, suggesting that beauty and sadness can occupy the same emotional space. Through the relationship between figure, landscape, and title, the work invites viewers to consider how memories change over time and how the emotional intensity of childhood can persist long after the moment itself has passed.

Pour Vahid continues to develop his exploration of memory, landscape, and the emotional complexity of growing up. His recent projects have included the solo exhibition Scarlet Clouds at a66 Gallery in Mallorca, alongside international residencies in Los Angeles and Japan. These experiences have expanded his visual vocabulary while maintaining his focus on solitary figures, mysterious natural environments, and the shifting boundary between wonder and disillusionment. In October 2026, his work is also included in Vessel, a group exhibition presented by Sabbatikal at The KINN in Venice, California, running from October 9, 2026, through January 16, 2027. As his practice evolves, Pour Vahid continues to use painting as a way of revisiting the imaginative worlds of childhood and reconnecting with the emotions they hold.

Artist Profile — Artemin Gallery

Artist Profile — a66 Gallery