Paper to Nature

Paper to Nature is a solo exhibition by Fateme Motallebi at Doost Art Gallery, Tehran, open from 18 September to 17 November 2026. It shows landscape works in papier-mâché on canvas, dated 2025 and 2026, in which coloured papier-mâché forms the textured surface of each painting. The listed works range from 30 by 30 centimetres to 120 by 80 centimetres. The gallery is open from Monday to Friday, 4pm to 8pm, except holidays.

Motallebi describes the series as a personal return to nature. The works are abstract landscapes drawn from her experience of northern Iran, where she was born, and they record moments of contemplation. They have no narrative and no fixed time or place. She names silence, humidity, colour and the constant change of the environment as part of that experience.

Texture carries the series. Motallebi builds the surfaces from recycled materials that were once discarded, so the material itself becomes part of the subject. The gallery's video about the show says she has gradually moved away from the brush. She now works with coloured papier-mâché, translating memories of landscape from different seasons into the surface of the paintings.

In the Tehran installation the works hang as separate paintings of varied formats, with skies and fields in orange, blue and green. Motallebi was born in 1995 and is a painter and calligrapher. She studied painting to degree level at the University of Art. Doost Art Gallery also has a space in Amsterdam, but this exhibition is in the Tehran space.