About
Hamid Motahari
Designer
Hamid Motahari is a designer whose practice grew from years of work in Iranian carpet design, with a particular focus on the Tabriz style.
Designing carpets, including work with established brands in the Iranian carpet industry, formed his understanding of pattern, colour, proportion, rhythm and the relationship between individual details and the whole composition.
Over approximately the past decade, his work has expanded into products, decorative objects, furniture, jewellery, fashion jewellery, fountain pens, teapots and luxury goods, including perfume packaging. These categories differ in scale, material and function, yet they share a point of reference. The Iranian carpet remains the signature connecting them: its motifs and compositional principles inform how he approaches objects that people use, wear, hold and live with.
His artistic projects extend the practice to human concerns. In Carpet Against Poverty, humanitarian ideas enter carpet design and proceeds have been directed towards charitable causes. His unfinished-carpet works honour carpet weavers and draw attention to their livelihoods, with proceeds directed towards improving their circumstances. The Cigarette addresses the effects of smoking on life and health through the damage done to a valuable object.
His work has been exhibited in Iran and internationally, including in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Portugal and Türkiye.
Approach
Motahari’s practice explores how inherited design languages can remain active within modern life. Traditional forms enter products that people use, wear, hold and live with. The carpet supplies a visual inheritance that can be reinterpreted across different functions and materials.
Strong contrast and unconventional treatments are used to make familiar forms newly visible. Traditional motifs and compositional principles meet contemporary objects and unexpected contexts. Experimentation supports the continued development of traditional design and its resilience under the pressures of modernity.
The social dimension of the practice centres on poverty, the livelihoods of carpet weavers and awareness of consequences in everyday life. Selected works combine artistic expression with the use of proceeds for charitable causes and support for weavers.
Areas of expertise
Exhibited in
IranUnited KingdomUnited Arab EmiratesSpainPortugalTürkiye