Behnaz Alebouyeh Behnaz Alebouyeh
Self portrait, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm
Realist Oil Painting  ·  Lund, Sweden

Behnaz
Alebouyeh

The human presence — and the light that finds it.

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The Work

Trained in the disciplined realism of the Florence Academy of Art, Behnaz Alebouyeh paints the human presence at close range — portraits, still lifes and quiet interiors where a single source of light does the work of revelation.

I

Paintings

Oil on canvas
Ten works
Self portrait, oil on canvas, 100 × 150 cm
Self portrait Not available
Oil on canvas · 100 × 150 cm View +
Self portrait, oil on canvas, 100 × 150 cm
Plate 01

Self portrait

She painted herself life-size, so there would be nowhere to hide. The dress is the pale of early morning — the hour before decisions are made, one hand open and the other not yet. It is less a likeness than a question left standing in the room.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
100 × 150 cm
Status
Not available
Portrait of Rosemary, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm
Portrait of Rosemary Available
Oil on canvas · 50 × 40 cm View +
Portrait of Rosemary, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm
Plate 02

Portrait of Rosemary

Every year Rosemary has lived is somewhere in this face, and none of it apologises. The light finds the ledger of her cheek and reads it slowly, without flattery. To sit for a portrait at her age is its own quiet kind of courage.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50 × 40 cm
Status
Available
Nostalgia, oil on canvas, 50 × 45 cm
Nostalgia AvailableOil on canvas · 50 × 45 cmView +
Nostalgia, oil on canvas, 50 × 45 cm
Plate 03

Nostalgia

An old suitcase, unlatched after years, gives up its small population of marbles and paper figures. Each glass sphere holds a trapped afternoon — a courtyard in Tehran, a game called in before dark. Memory, the painting seems to say, travels light but never fully unpacks.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50 × 45 cm
Status
Available
Portrait of Clemence, oil on canvas, 50 × 45 cm
Portrait of Clemence Available
Oil on canvas · 50 × 45 cm View +
Portrait of Clemence, oil on canvas, 50 × 45 cm
Plate 04

Portrait of Clemence

Clemence was caught between two thoughts, and the second one won. The green of her coat is almost the green of standing water, still holding the last of the day. She looks just past the painter, at whatever it is we all keep looking for.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50 × 45 cm
Status
Available
Portrait of Venus, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm
Portrait of Venus Available
Oil on canvas · 50 × 40 cm View +
Portrait of Venus, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm
Plate 05

Portrait of Venus

Named for the goddess, though she is entirely mortal — and the better for it. The painter grants her no shell, no sea, only good light and full attention, which is the older form of worship. Any ordinary face, held long enough, turns to myth.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50 × 40 cm
Status
Available
Paper swans, oil on canvas, 60 × 50 cm
Paper swans Not availableOil on canvas · 60 × 50 cmView +
Paper swans, oil on canvas, 60 × 50 cm
Plate 06

Paper swans

Two swans folded from a single sheet, sailing a tabletop that has quietly become an ocean. Paper remembers every crease, the way we remember every hand that folded us. They will not last the season — which is precisely why they were worth painting at all.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
60 × 50 cm
Status
Not available
Portrait of Farnaz, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm
Portrait of Farnaz Not available
Oil on canvas · 40 × 30 cm View +
Portrait of Farnaz, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm
Plate 07

Portrait of Farnaz

Farnaz arrives the way remembered faces do — certain at the eyes, dissolving at the edges. Painted almost from memory, in the blues of distance and long telephone calls. Some people we hold; others we only manage to keep the outline of.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
40 × 30 cm
Status
Not available
Self portrait, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm
Self portrait Not available
Oil on canvas · 40 × 30 cm View +
Self portrait, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm
Plate 08

Self portrait

A smaller, later self — painted after dark, when the face belongs to no one else. Here she is not asking anything; she is simply keeping herself company. The background gives nothing back, and she seems to prefer it that way.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
40 × 30 cm
Status
Not available
Resting clowns, oil on canvas, 20 × 20 cm
Resting clowns Available
Oil on canvas · 20 × 20 cm View +
Resting clowns, oil on canvas, 20 × 20 cm
Plate 09

Resting clowns

The performance is over; the clowns have folded into one another like laundry. On a canvas the size of a book, their painted grief is somehow larger than the room. Even joy, it turns out, has to lie down somewhere.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
20 × 20 cm
Status
Available
Fairy lights in the dark, oil on canvas, 50 × 46 cm
Fairy lights in the dark Available
Oil on canvas · 50 × 46 cm View +
Fairy lights in the dark, oil on canvas, 50 × 46 cm
Plate 10

Fairy lights in the dark

A string of small fires, strung across the black, insisting on warmth. The dark is enormous and the lights are not; that is precisely the point. She paints the smallest defiance — a winter room that refuses to go cold.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
50 × 46 cm
Status
Available
II

Drawings

Chalk & charcoal
on Roma paper
Portrait drawing, chalk and charcoal on Roma paper, 60 × 50 cm
Portrait drawing View +
Charcoal · 60 × 50 cm
Portrait drawing, chalk and charcoal on Roma paper, 60 × 50 cm
Plate 11

Portrait drawing

Built entirely from shadow — no colour to hide behind, only the places where the light stops. Chalk lifts him out of the paper; charcoal lets him sink back into it. This is the discipline beneath every painting: learning to see in grey before you dare to see in colour.

Medium
Chalk & charcoal on Roma paper
Dimensions
60 × 50 cm
Status
Not available
Cast drawing, chalk and charcoal on Roma paper, 70 × 50 cm
Cast drawing — I View +
Charcoal · 70 × 50 cm
Cast drawing, chalk and charcoal on Roma paper, 70 × 50 cm
Plate 12

Cast drawing — I

A plaster philosopher, copied faithfully from the Academy's shelf. To draw the cast is to hold a long conversation with the dead about the fall of light across a brow. The exercise is old, and humbling, and it works.

Medium
Chalk & charcoal on Roma paper
Dimensions
70 × 50 cm
Status
Available
Cast drawing, chalk and charcoal on Roma paper, 70 × 50 cm
Cast drawing — II View +
Charcoal · 70 × 50 cm
Cast drawing, chalk and charcoal on Roma paper, 70 × 50 cm
Plate 13

Cast drawing — II

White plaster in a black room, holding perfectly still for as long as it takes. She studies the cast the way earlier centuries did — patiently, reverently, by hand. What survives on the page is not the statue but the looking.

Medium
Chalk & charcoal on Roma paper
Dimensions
70 × 50 cm
Status
Available
III

The Artist

Behnaz Alebouyeh at work in the studio

Between Tehran and Florence — a life spent learning to see.

Behnaz Alebouyeh is a visual artist, born in 1990 in Tehran, Iran, and currently residing in Sweden. She studied in the painting program at the Faculty of Art and Architecture, Azad University of Tehran, between 2010 and 2014.

She then continued her studies in realist painting at the Florence Academy of Art in Mölndal, Sweden, between 2017 and 2020, where she also worked as a teaching assistant and received several awards from the academy. She now works as a professional painter in Lund, Sweden.

1990Born in Tehran, Iran
2010–14Painting, Faculty of Art & Architecture, Azad University, Tehran
2017–20The Florence Academy of Art, Sweden — Teaching Assistant & award recipient
TodayWorking painter, Lund, Sweden
IV

Available Works

Selected paintings and drawings are available for acquisition. For price, provenance and shipping, write to the studio.

Nostalgia
Nostalgia
Oil on canvas · 50 × 45 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Fairy lights in the dark
Fairy lights in the dark
Oil on canvas · 50 × 46 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Portrait of Rosemary
Portrait of Rosemary
Oil on canvas · 50 × 40 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Portrait of Clemence
Portrait of Clemence
Oil on canvas · 50 × 45 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Portrait of Venus
Portrait of Venus
Oil on canvas · 50 × 40 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Resting clowns
Resting clowns
Oil on canvas · 20 × 20 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Cast drawing I
Cast drawing — I
Charcoal · 70 × 50 cm
Price on request
Inquire
Cast drawing II
Cast drawing — II
Charcoal · 70 × 50 cm
Price on request
Inquire
V  —  Inquiries

The studio welcomes commissions, portrait sittings and gallery enquiries.

studio@behnazalebouyeh.com
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Behnaz Alebouyeh © 2026 Behnaz Alebouyeh · Lund, Sweden