Zory is a British-Iranian visual artist based in Greater London. She was born in Tehran and immigrated to England in 1985. She was first trained by Ebrahim Jafari, who was a renown poet, artist and lecturer. She then continued to study art at the London Metropolitan University and at the University of Hertfordshire.

 

Her practice developed through an exploration of cultural and political agendas by employing the mediums of installation and photography. She deploys a wide range of media processes as well as drawing and etching by working with abstract representations of the human body to communicate literally and metaphorically by using domestic objects such as safety pins, spoons, cloth and hair. While her artistic expression is influenced by her background, it is also concerned with more universal issues and perceptions around displacement, exploitation and gender oppression. 

Zory’s work is held in multiple collections, and she has been exhibited around the UK and in Europe including four solo shows at the 198 Gallery, Watermans Art Centre, Margaret Harvey Gallery and the Norwich Art Centre.

She has exhibited with many galleries, including the Foundling Museum, Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art and taken part in numerous group exhibitions, including ‘Unexpected: Continuing Narratives of Identity and Migration’ (Ben Uri Gallery, 2016), ‘Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art’ (the Royal West of England Academy, 2020), ‘Migrations: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection’ (Gloucester Museum, 2019), ‘Art, Identity, Migration’ (Ben Uri Gallery, The London Art Fair, 2023) and ‘Uprooted Visions’ (Edinburgh Printmakers, 2023).

In 2018 she was commissioned by the Ben Uri to respond to the exhibition ‘Liberators: 12 Extraordinary Women Artists from the Ben Uri Collection’. In May 2022 she undertook a Residency at Edinburgh Printmakers.  Zory has also worked in participatory art practices and has worked with a range of groups including unaccompanied young refugees.