DAVOOD ROOSTAEI: AN INTRODUCTION

Davood Roostaei was born in Malayer, Iran, southwest of Tehran, in 1959. Roostaei studied at Tehran’s Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1970s, until the Islamic Revolution upended Iranian creative life. Opposed to the new order and, as a pacifist, to its war with Iraq, Roostaei turned to the overtly political art form of graffiti – and was imprisoned for two years, under notoriously harsh conditions, for anti-regime activities.

Written by Peter Frank