Sahar Vatanz is an Iranian-British artist and photographer based in London. With a background in graphic design and over eighteen years of experience in the art industry, her practice explores perception, movement, and abstraction through photography as an expressive and experiential medium. Her work is grounded in long exposure and intentional camera movement (ICM), using time and motion as active components of the image. The entire process of transformation happens in-camera, and she avoids heavy editing, allowing light, movement, and timing to shape each photograph organically. Rather than documenting reality, her images question how reality is perceived, remembered, and emotionally experienced. Sahar has always been drawn to painting and painters, particularly their freedom to work beyond literal representation. Although she chose a camera over a brush, painting has remained central to her thinking. At a pivotal moment in her practice, she began to question the limits of photography and asked whether it could behave more like painting, layered, fluid, and responsive to emotion rather than fixed and descriptive. This inquiry became the foundation of her visual language. Through long exposure, Sahar treats time as a material rather than a constraint. Movement replaces brushstroke, and duration replaces pigment. Her images often exist between figuration and abstraction, resisting clarity and certainty. They invite slow viewing and emotional engagement, rather than immediate interpretation. Living with chronic illness and disability has played a significant role in shaping Sahar’s relationship with movement, time, and perception. Physical limitation and pain have deeply influenced how she experiences the world, often forcing stillness where motion is expected. Rather than approaching disability as a subject to illustrate, she understands it as a condition that reshapes perception and feeling. This lived experience informs her process intuitively, guiding her sensitivity to fragility, tension, and emotional depth. Photography became a way to translate this experience into visual form. If physical movement is restricted, the camera becomes the site of motion. Through long exposure and intentional movement, Sahar reclaims dynamism and agency, allowing the image to carry what the body cannot. Her work reflects an ongoing negotiation between control and surrender, stability and instability, presence and absence. Sahar’s background in graphic design strongly informs her sense of composition and structure. Even when her images appear fluid or unstable, they are guided by an underlying formal awareness developed through years of working with visual systems. This balance between structure and openness allows her work to remain both intentional and emotionally resonant. Her work has received international recognition. She was selected as a finalist for the BBA Photography Award, Berlin (2024). Earlier in her career, she received Photography Awards in Iran (2009 and 2011) for artistic excellence. In 2025, she was named one of the 100 Emerging Artists – Women’s Edition, recognizing women artists with strong contemporary practices and original visual voices. Sahar’s photographs have been exhibited internationally across Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Middle East. Recent exhibitions include Art Expo New York (2025), ART ON LOOP Seoul at The Holy Art Gallery (2025), Thomson Gallery, Zug, Switzerland (2025), Nicoleta Gallery, Berlin (2025), Casa del Arte Palma, Spain (2025), and Bongereh Exhibition, London (2025). Earlier exhibitions include Changing Perspective Photography Exhibition, London (2024), Annual Photography Exhibition, Yerevan, Armenia (2018), and The City That Doesn’t Love Me, Shiraz, Iran (2010). She currently collaborates with Singuart, where her work is presented to an international audience. Influenced by Cubism, Expressionism, and Impressionism, Sahar draws from fragmented perspectives, emotional intensity, and sensitivity to light and atmosphere. These influences inform her approach without being explicitly referenced, allowing her work to remain rooted in photography while expanding its expressive possibilities. Sahar’s practice exists between painting and photography, not as a fusion of disciplines, but as a way to question their boundaries. Her work invites viewers to slow down, sit with uncertainty, and engage with images through feeling rather than certainty. Through her lens, photography becomes a space for reflection, resilience, and reimagining perception.