Natasha Motaghi

Natasha Motaghi is a British/Iranian visual artist, maker, collector, magpie and sea swimmer, born and raised in Manchester, now based in London. She graduated from Falmouth University with a 2:1 BA (Hons) in Textile Design. She focused on zero-waste weaving for genderless fashion during this time and won the Textile Society Award 2020.

She is constantly thinking about how words and imagery can be collated together, using Mythology, History, Politics, Pop Culture and the rituals of hand-crafted artefacts to guide her way of making.

ژن، ژیان، ئازادی

Natasha's work focuses on mono-printing, jacquard weaving, and garment construction, using double entendres to alter the final garment's portrayal and/or usage. Mono-printing plays a considerable role in Natasha's creative process. This allows the thinking time between pen/paper ink/screen to be reduced into a quick motion to capture the moment in a few brushstrokes or pen marks. A one-time product, not adhering to the masses, representative of the ever-changing landscape from which she draws her research and inspiration. 

Extensive research and documentation through photography, film, poetry, archives and objects play a vital role in Natasha's work in helping to interrogate the feelings of melancholy and nostalgia. This interrogation helps craft and map feelings of belonging to the Sea/Land/Britain, including her fetishisation of it. Her recent work has closely examined the great British seaside, its culture and aesthetics and how it can be observed, reviewed and understood through photography, film, writing and printmaking. She will continue this research into the British seaside and how each pocket of the UK's coastline has its own identity, belonging and modern historical significance.

Inspired by CCTV, dads on holidays with their cameras, the Natural History Museums Mineral Collection and Virginia Woolf. She would describe herself as a magpie–a natural collector of objects, words and photos.