Roya Khalili is a contemporary figurative artist who lives and works between Vienna and London. Her practice explores the delicate threshold between pain and hope, themes deeply informed by a life traversed across contrasting cultures and periods of intense historical upheaval. Born near Cologne, Germany, Roya moved to Tehran at the age of five. Growing up in Iran during the Pahlavi era, she immersed herself in world literature and cinema, commencing classical drawing training at fifteen with an initial focus on fashion. A chance encounter with one of Queen Farah Pahlavi’s designers led her to read Fashion Design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.Her trajectory was altered by family circumstances that forced her return to Iran during the Cultural Revolution—a period defined by university closures and the Iran–Iraq War. Undeterred, she continued her education privately, studying painting and literature, before enrolling in Textile Design and Engineering. This period proved pivotal, deepening her relationship with Persian patterns and visual heritage. Subsequent moves to Geneva, and later back to Tehran, brought both hardship and artistic renewal. After years of silence, painting emerged as her primary language, culminating in her first body of work, Bird in the Cage Can’t Sing. However, mounting political pressures eventually compelled her to leave Iran once more. Despite enduring profound personal and physical struggles, including years of illness in Vienna, Roya’s work consistently seeks resilience. Her paintings weave together narratives of womanhood, humanity, and spirituality. Now based in London, she has created her three most recent collections and further refined her portraiture skills at Heatherley’s School of Fine Art. Her work has been exhibited in Vienna, Zurich, and London, and she is a member of the Society of Women Artists (UK).