Maryam Mahdavi was born in Teheran, Iran, which she left as a teenager for Paris. She studied art history at the Ecole du Louvre and stylism at the Ecole Esmod in Paris. A decorator and a designer of furniture and objects, she presents herself as a ‘scenograph of the imaginary’.

The decors she creates for an international clientele and her friends reflect her internal world, a world of fables, metamorphosis, of the marvellous and the monstrous, deeply rooted in her idealised Persian childhood.

In the objects and furniture she makes, the boundaries between the representations of the human, the animal and the vegetal are often blurred. She likes to reconnect with surrealism in a contemporary and personal way that is witty, deliciously childish and fun.

An example: the ‘Twins table’ , a pair of two side tables made in metal that seem to be walking away on their slightly shaky bases: she created them thinking of her older brother and herself as teenagers, an inseparable and awkward team, growing up but still inhabiting the magic countries of Oz and Alice.