Affsoongar on Anonymity, Enchantment, and Survival

Affsoongar replies to me via Instagram DM from Tehran. This is not her real name. Her safety and the longevity of her self-taught art career depend on her anonymity. Her current exhibition at Pulp in Holyoke has been extended until August 31. The show, consisting of fifteen pieces composed with gouache, colored pencil, oil pastels, and mixed media on paper, showcases her ability to transcend and enchant beyond the traditional confines of the gallery space and conventional belief systems. Her figures represent an empowered Persian woman existing in a vibrant parallel world, exempt from patriarchal restrictions and religious expectations. The artist’s name—based on the word afsoongar, which means charmer or enchanter in Farsi—is not just an alias but also a persona. It’s an opportunity, according to the artist, “to step into a space where imagination and reality overlap.” As Affsoongar, she is able to actualize characteristics she feels unable to embody in her personal life.

Affsoongar’s lyrical titles of her work on display at Pulp suggest a playfulness and narrative through line to connect the pieces. In Eeny Meeny Miny Moe (2025), a figure with long arms reaches toward a piano, the keys cradling rope-bound women. It’s like a nursery rhyme for adults; something nefarious could be lurking nearby, but it’s probably just the cat peeking out from behind the sheet music. The divine feminine energy overpowers any compromising position the artist places her subject in. The figures might be composed of two dimensional strokes but they are anything but flat or passive; they are luring us in.

In Death Proof (2024), an orange car speeds by with three figures: one at the wheel or possibly checking her reflection in her compact; another lifting her shirt up to flash the viewer; a third topless body is draped languorously out of the car window until the viewer’s eyes follow the gouache strokes down to find two guns in her hands. In Duel (2025), perhaps a consequence to Death Proof, an eeriness and solemnity is brought to the queer Western. Two femme figures face off, naked except for red and purple cowboy boots and holsters around their thighs. Sprouting from their hair are eagles shooting lasers from their eyes to the guns to the human bodies.

Affsoongar’s Instagram showcases a tiny glimpse into her life. The most you’ll see of the artist are her hands at work, her face obscured. In a post for her cat’s birthday, she shares a collection of pictures of the feline crouched beside a work in progress. In the pastel drawing, a figure sits in a chair holding a cat while the room burns. The caption of a June 14 post, in response to Israel’s attacks on Iran reads, “Idk if this is the last painting I can share here before shit gets even more serious and they cut off our internet, I feel like I took everything for granted, painting, for example. I don’t wanna appear weak but each time I hear explosions my heart stops a little.”

Beyond Massachusetts, Affsoongar’s work will be featured at Outsider Paris art fair this October. Affsoongar’s prints are available to be bought as digital files through the artist’s Instagram account. We’ve been given the gift of seeing her work—smuggled out of Iran and shipped to Pulp from London by a friend—in person for longer, a strange notion to contend with since the artist herself cannot physically attend her own show. She and I corresponded strictly via email and direct messages in order to ensure her anonymity is upheld.

Sophie Howe: I can imagine that it is difficult to not be able to physically view the exhibition spaces that are showcasing your work. How do you feel about this?

Affsoongar: I try to see it as part of my artistic journey. The fact that my work can travel beyond me and create a presence of its own is meaningful. It suggests that the art has its own life, independent of the artist. Still, living in my country means facing so many challenges on a daily basis that the inability to attend my exhibitions in person is among the smaller difficulties. Yet it is something I deeply long for. I’ve never had the chance to stand in a gallery, hear people’s reactions face to face, and truly receive their impressions in person. That absence leaves a void I don’t think anything else can fully replace.

SH: What does being a self-taught artist mean to you?

A: My path to art was shaped by personal circumstances that took me away from it for a time. I eventually found my way back in my mid twenties, and that return felt like reclaiming something essential. For me, being self-taught means learning through persistence, experimentation, and instinct rather than formal theory. It has allowed me to discover a voice that feels very personal and honest.

SH: How do the figures in your artwork materialize for you? Do you dream of them? Are they the same characters repeatedly appearing or do you conjure up new characters in each work?

A: The figures in my work often emerge through a combination of intuition, memory, and imagination. Sometimes they appear in dreams; other times they come to me during moments of reflection or while I am immersed in the creative process. Some characters are recurring. They evolve and take on new forms as I revisit them but I also allow new figures to emerge spontaneously in each piece. In that sense, my work is a dialogue between the familiar and the unexpected, a space where past and present, conscious and unconscious, intersect.

SH: Do you feel like you take on a new persona when you are communicating as Affsoongar? Beyond being a painter and photographer, do you also identify as a performance artist?

A: In many ways, Affsoongar is my alter ego: an embodiment of qualities I aspire to grow into. That doesn’t necessarily make me a performance artist in the traditional sense, but there is a performative layer in the way I present my work and invite others into its atmosphere. It’s less about acting a role and more about embodying the enchantment that the name suggests.

SH: It’s impossible to write about your art and your artistic persona without mentioning your current circumstances. What about your life has changed since Israel’s attack on Iran?

A: The attack has changed life in ways that are felt collectively. There’s a shared weight, a sense that everything fragile can be shaken at any moment. Even the simplest routines carry a quiet tension, and the world feels less certain. For me, this constant fragility has deepened introspection and reflection, both as a person and as an artist. I try to channel these feelings into my work; art becomes a space to process the unrest that words cannot fully capture. In creating, I find a way to reclaim some agency and meaning, even when everything around me feels uncertain and disrupted.

---

“Affsoongar” is on view through August 31 at Pulp, 80 Race Street, Holyoke, MA.