Ania Sabet was born of British/Iranian heritage in Portsmouth, England in 1972 and grew up in Iran. She immigrated back to the UK at the age of 17 and settled in London, where she studied medicine and then pursued a career in art, working in different mediums and producing work inspired by her life experiences and mental states.
Sculptor and medical doctor, Ania Sabet was born in Portsmouth, England in 1972, of British/Iranian heritage. She grew up in Iran, and her time there coincided with the 1978–9 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War between 1980 and 1988. In an environment marked by chaos, instability, survival struggles, and limited resources, an art career seemed unsustainable and Sabet instead pursued medicine. She immigrated back to the UK at the age of 17 and settled in London, England, enrolling at the Imperial College School of Medicine where she achieved a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery degree in 2002. She furthered her medical career by obtaining the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (nMRCGP) from the Oxford Deanery in 2011. Sabet then pursued an entirely different trajectory, studying filmmaking at the Makhmalbaf Film Academy, established by renowned Iranian film director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf in his home in Teheran, throughout 2017. In 2018, she earned a Diploma in Sculpture from Heatherley School of Fine Art in London. In 2019, she studied Psychology at the London School of Psychology before returning to Makhmalbaf in 2020 to achieve a Diploma in Acting. Finally, in 2021, Sabet completed her MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, and continues to work both as an artist and as a GP at St Thomas’ Hospital. in London.
Sabet’s oeuvre includes collage, drawing, moving image, painting, sculpture and textiles. Across these different mediums, she often employs the same theme of fragmented and isolated body parts or hybrid creatures in a Surrealist -inspired and cartoon-like style. Her practice is rooted in psychoanalysis and the process of visualising the subconscious via her personal experiences. This approach generates an engaging storytelling experience. Sabet’s formative years as a war-torn, financially struggling refugee profoundly influenced her perception of life, teaching her to see certainty as fluid and driving her quest to understand the psychological essence of her environment. The desolation and disarray of the Covid lockdowns, reminiscent of her childhood, highlighted the ever-changing nature of existence for her. This insight fuels her exploration into the surreal quality of our perceived reality. Sabet’s practice is instinctual, shaped by the materials she uses, her surroundings, and her psychological state during the creative process, with a desire to find a path towards the subconscious. Her works often feature repeated bodily themes across different mediums, each reinterpreted in its own context. These themes evolve into sculptures and installations, suitable for both indoors and outdoors, mirroring her journey of psychological discovery and artistic manifestation in an ever-evolving world.
For her RCA Graduate Degree Exhibition in 2021 Sabet exhibited a mixed-media installation titled Convoluted Realities which merged mushroom-like forms with parts of the human body, such as eyes and lips, reminiscent of a psychedelic-inspired Surrealism. That same year, she produced façade installations under the titi eThere are no calories in kisses for 48 Brook street (London) for the 2021 Mayfair Art Weekend. The concept began with a traumatic event that left Sabet feeling shattered and fragmented, resulting in an installation composed of isolated and disjointed body parts. The series, inspired by this personal upheaval, symbolises the process of reassembling and healing from a place of dissociation and turmoil. Her series of paintings titled A Tale of Regressions and Progressions consists of autobiographical works created in response to difficult events. By adopting a spontaneous process, the end product is a mystery to the artist herself. The aim of this approach is to shift focus away from conscious thought. Using her acting experience, in 2019, Sabet starred in a short film titled I’m not My Body about an Iranian news anchor, working for a Persian TV channel in the UK, who finds himself in a difficult situation as his nude photos circulate on social media.
Ania Sabet lives and works in London. Her work is not part of any public collections in the UK.