About the Artist

Saideh Mirzai Dodangeh

Saideh Mirzai Dodangeh is a contemporary artist based in Australia whose practice focuses primarily on ceramics and sculpture, with an interest in installation and mixed-media approaches. Her work explores memory, cultural heritage, identity, belonging, displacement, and the stories carried through people, objects, and materials.

Born in Iran during a period of significant political and social change, Mirzai grew up with a strong awareness of the restrictions placed on women and limitations on freedom of expression. From an early age, she was drawn to art and actively participated in artistic activities throughout high school. Art became a way of expressing herself and exploring ideas and experiences that were not always possible to communicate openly.

Her early professional life developed within publishing and visual communication. She studied animation while beginning work at a newspaper office, later developing experience in graphic design, layout, writing, editing, marketing, and management. Her work in the newspaper industry gave her a deeper understanding of communication and storytelling, while also exposing her to the social realities and experiences of women within Iranian society.

Alongside her professional career, Mirzai continued developing her own artistic practice, particularly through acrylic painting. A significant turning point came when an exhibition she had organised with a friend was destroyed shortly before its opening. The experience profoundly affected her understanding of freedom of expression and the vulnerability of artistic voice. Not long afterward, she left Iran with her family and began a new chapter in Australia.

Mirzai arrived in Australia in 2011 and spent much of her early life in Adelaide, living close to the ocean. She initially studied graphic design at TAFE SA but soon realised that her interest lay more deeply in art and creative practice. She changed direction and completed a Certificate IV in Fine Art, where she created LOVE, a calligraphic sculpture that marked an important beginning in her development as an artist.

Since then, ceramics and sculpture have become central to her practice. Her engagement with clay has provided a way to explore the relationship between material, touch, memory, and transformation. Her work frequently draws from Persian heritage, including poetry, textiles, patterns, calligraphy, symbolism, and the visual richness of Persian history. Rather than simply reproducing traditional imagery, she reinterprets these cultural references through contemporary forms and processes.

For Mirzai, art carries a sense of home. It represents love, colour, hope, freedom, and the continuing search for connection. While she is deeply attracted to the visual beauty of artworks, she is particularly interested in the stories and histories behind them — the lives, memories, struggles, and emotions that give an object meaning.

Her practice is an ongoing dialogue between past and present, Iran and Australia, personal memory and collective history. Through ceramics and sculpture, Mirzai seeks to create works that hold traces of these experiences and invite viewers to connect with their own memories, stories, and sense of belonging.

In the artist's words

Artistic Practice

My practice explores memory, cultural heritage, belonging, freedom, and the stories held within people, objects, and materials. Working primarily with ceramics and sculpture, I use clay as a way of connecting the past with the present and transforming personal and cultural experiences into tangible forms.

Art has always represented something deeply personal to me. It is connected to my understanding of home, love, colour, hope, and freedom. Growing up in Iran, I became aware from an early age of the limitations placed on women and the importance of having a voice. These experiences continue to influence the way I understand art — not only as a form of beauty, but as a way of expressing, remembering, questioning, and connecting.

My Persian heritage is an important foundation of my practice. I am drawn to the richness and magical quality of Persian culture, particularly its poetry, textiles, patterns, calligraphy, architecture, symbolism, and long history of storytelling. Rather than reproducing these traditions literally, I reinterpret fragments of them through contemporary forms and materials. I am interested in what happens when familiar cultural symbols are transformed and placed into a new context.

Although I am deeply attracted to the visual beauty of an artwork, I am often more interested in the story behind it: who made it, what it has experienced, what it remembers, and what it might mean to someone else. This interest in human stories leads me to explore the relationship between personal memory and collective history.

Clay has become an especially meaningful material within my practice because of its physical and emotional qualities. It can be shaped, pressed, carved, joined, broken, transformed, and preserved. Through touch and process, clay can hold traces of the maker's actions, much like memory holds traces of experience.

My work is an ongoing exploration of home and belonging across places, cultures, memories, and time. Through ceramics and sculpture, I seek to create works that carry traces of the past while remaining open to new interpretations, inviting viewers to recognise something of their own stories within them.

← Back to Home