Cruelty of life under Ayatollah’s regime, hope for the future, reflected in Iranian artist’s work

Friday, 6 March 2026

The haunting painting by Roya Feyz titled Nika - Silent Voices Series was inspired by the life and death of a 16-year-old girl who met a horrific death at the hands of Iran’s dreaded Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The same night Roya Feyz was awarded a top prize in a major competition for an artwork reflecting the horrors of life in her native Iran, US bombs began falling on the country.

It’s a coincidence that is not lost on Feyz, who was in Hamilton to accept the Merit in Painting award on Saturday night at the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards.

The winning acrylic-on-canvas work is titled Nika - Silent Voices Series.

Iranian artist Roya Feyz is embracing her new life in New Zealand - and is celebrating what might be the end of the oppressive regime in her home country.

It was inspired by the story of Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old singer who was abducted by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during a protest in 2022 and was raped and bludgeoned to death while in custody.

In her artist’s statement, Feyz wrote that the work referenced “the lives of women living under suffocation, deprived of the right to express themselves”.

“Their pain remains visible in their eyes. Throughout life, they reflect courage and hope into society and remain strong, revealed through flowing colours across the face.”

Nika - Silent Voices Series and the other 65 works included for exhibition in the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award can be seen at Artspost until March 14.

Feyz, 34, who now lives in Auckland, said she too had attracted the unwanted attention of the IRGC and said the war against her country was very welcome.

“Perhaps it is difficult to understand how people can celebrate war in their own country. But for them, even war becomes the only path to freedom from a regime that has held them captive for decades.

“I cannot predict the future of a country that has lived through such painful experiences. But today the only thing we think about is the freedom of our people.

“’Near the home of one of my relatives a missile struck. He spoke to me and said ‘I have no problem with this. Because this war will overthrow the Islamic Republic. I am happy. I am dancing in the streets.’”

Roya Feyz has been horrified by the recent massacres of protestors in Iran, and says the end of the country’s oppressive regime cannot come quickly enough.

Feyz was born in the Kurdish city of Kermanshah in western Iran - “a beautiful and historic city with kind and warm-hearted people who have lived for many years under harsh conditions and deprivation.”

“Fifteen years ago, when I was 19, I was studying architecture at university. Because I opposed the religious ideology taught by the theology professors and spoke openly about my beliefs, I came under pressure and torture by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Eventually the situation became so severe that I was forced to leave the university.”

The New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards exhibition, in the Artspost building in downtown Hamilton, is free to enter, and many of the works are for sale.

The main prize for paint in the 2026 New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award was won by Northland artist Brett aCourt, for his symbolic oils work titled Kahu-Manu Aute.

In 2013 she fled the country, accompanied by her sister and mother - however more traumatic experiences were yet to come.

“I packed my loved ones, my memories, and everything that had value to me into a small suitcase and left Iran for an unknown destination.

Ben Reid's woodcut work Absolute Lunacy, which reflects the disparity between conservation efforts on land and sea, was awarded the Ruth Davey Merit in Printmaking Award.

“Because we attempted to reach Australia by sea from Indonesia in 2013, the Australian government placed us under its offshore detention policy and refused to grant us visas.

Six years on detained on Nauru followed before another seven in Australia with a temporary visa before New Zealand took them in on a humanitarian visa in 2024.

Feyz began attending English classes at university - and began to paint.

“I painted, tore the canvas, painted again, tore it again - until the pain inside me and the colours themselves began to show me a new world.

“I realised that I could control fluid colours on the canvas and shape them into the forms I wanted, and show the world as I see it.

“The pain inside me and the experiences I had lived through, together with the courage of the brave girls of my country who lost their lives for freedom, became the inspiration for my work.”

From that process, the painting of Nika was created.

“During the process of creating that painting, I cried many times. I screamed. Through it, other paintings followed — part of a series that I am still developing today under the name ‘Silent Voices’.”

At Saturday night’s ceremony awards judge James Ormsby described Feyz’s winning artwork as “extremely powerful”.

When he initially saw it he thought “Damn, what’s going on here? … It started to reveal even more power, the longer the time I spent with it.”

Nika and the other artworks in the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards are being exhibited at the Artspost galleries in Victoria St.

The main prize for paint was won by Brett aCourt, for his symbolic oils work titled Kahu-Manu Aute.

Painted on a woollen blanket, it depicts a kahu, or harrier hawk - which were seen by Māori as a medium between man and God - with the hawk’s head transposed with the head of Jesus Christ, denoting the effects of colonisation.

Fellow judge Gabrille Belz chose Ben Reid’s work Absolute Lunacy for the Ruth Davey Merit in Printmaking Award. The multi-plate woodcut features a striking image of a feathered great white shark.

The exhibition will run until March 14 and then, for the first time in the award’s 26-year history, will travel to Matamata - where it will be shown in the new KHR Gallery on Okauia Spring Rd from March 28 to April 4.