Elham Najafian is a contemporary artist who was born and raised in Iran and lives with her family in southern California. Elham’s discovery of a lifelong passion for painting started in an art class in high school by presenting her first-ever oil painting. Her teacher was impressed and insisted that she should pursue painting seriously. Her life’s journey takes her to Art University in the capital city of Tehran. In her senior year of study she received two awards for the second best student artist in a nationwide Student’s Art Competition held at Tehran University. Elham pursues an art style that combines realism and abstract forms. She holds realism as the highest form of artistic beauty. This beauty enters the artist’s mind and mixes with the creativity that produces new artistic creations in a dialectic way. Some adverse life experiences and  growth of mindset are mainly reflected in her developing art work. Colors are the strong first impressions in her paintings. She is poetic and a story teller who draws on the mythical and mystical in her evolving style. Her philosophical pursuit of a woman’s self-conscious identity is a central theme in her recent works.