After he finished high school, Mani Mehrzad (b. 1981, Iran) moved from Tehran to Kerman, Iran, where he lived for four years to study the restoration of historical structures, and that left a lifetime impression on him, inspiring him to start his first series of paintings. In 2004, he moved back to Tehran to study Visual Communication at Tarbiat Modares University. His interest in merging traditional Persian miniature painting and modern art and studying historic art schools such as Haraat, Tabriz, and Shiraz, as well as the Lithography of the nineteenth century, led to the creation of a new series of paintings. Besides painting, his practice includes book illustration, studying graphic design, and restoration of historical structures. Philosophy, literature, and living in two different cities that are in stark contrast in many ways have become his muse. His new paintings are a manifestation of the contradictions in which he lives.