Roya Salari, a Persian-born artist, studied at the Central School of Art and Drama in London and later at the London International Film School until 1984. She made short films and worked as a Film Editor for many years until the birth of her son in 1993, when she went back to painting and also read Theology. The imagery of the Christian East and particularly the simplicity of Coptic art and Armenian icons had a great influence on her. Salari now uses religious stories as universal allegories to convey her feelings on contemporary events in her homeland, the Middle East, and life in the West. Childhood, innocence and war, set within desolate, imaginary landscapes, still provide a sense of hope and a search for the transcendental.