About the artist
Alān Nabavi is a fine artist who works in the areas of ceramic sculpture, bronze sculpture and oil painting. He came to South Africa from Iran in 2016 and has made Cape Town his home.
Although Alān has a background in areas as diverse as engineering and the humanities, he discovered early in his career that his greatest talent lay in his intuitive grasp of three dimensionality, and that creating complex spacial forms was his calling.
Training and experience
Relatively early in his career Alān studied under and worked with some of the most celebrated Iranian ceramic master artists, including the President, the Vice President and the Inspector of the Iranian Pottery and Ceramics Association.
Iran has a ceramic tradition spanning millennia, resulting in one of the most advanced ceramic cultures in the world.
These years of study and involvement in the combination of both design and implementation, to produce many different types of art work, served to confirm that sculpting is his great love and enabled him to become professional in design, sculpting, modelling, moulding, and glazing and firing techniques.
Style
Alān is a sculptor whose practice spans realistic representation, abstract form, surrealist composition, and contemporary realism. His work explores the tension between the tangible and the imagined, drawing on both disciplined craftsmanship and conceptual experimentation. Moving fluidly between styles, he approaches each piece with a commitment to form, emotion, and narrative clarity.
His stylistic versatility allows him to examine the same subject through multiple lenses, uncovering layers of meaning that a single mode cannot fully reveal.
Whether working in clay, bronze, mixed media, or contemporary materials, he remains focused on creating sculptures that engage viewers intellectually and emotionally.
Combining Art and Education
In addition to actively producing personalised art works using a variety of techniques, Alān also gives classes in ceramic and bronze sculpture. It is no surprise that he loves teaching, has a special gift for imparting his knowledge and skill, and is adored by his students, who consistently produce sculptures beyond their wildest dreams.
He works with both beginners who have never before touched a piece of clay, to experienced artists, and encourages each student to express their own inner self, irrespective of the nature and style of their aspirations.