Roya Bahram (b.1998) is a British-Iranian sculptor based in London. Classically trained as a stonecarver, with a BA from City and Guilds of London Art School in Historic Architectural Stone Carving, Bahram creates trompe-l’œil sculptures that reimagine everyday domestic objects in stone. Her work bridges traditional craftsmanship and contemporary pop sensibility. Roya Bahram’s first solo show was at Blue Shop Gallery in 2024 and she went on to show works with T.J.Boulting during FRIEZE and Pangolin Gallery followed by London Art Fair with BSG in January 2025. Roya Bahram is represented by Blue Shop Gallery.
In ‘Playing House’, Roya Bahram turns the soft gestures of childhood make-believe into something solid, weighty, and enduring. Through hand-carved marble, onyx, and semiprecious stones, she recreates the intimate objects of domestic life, those everyday forms that cradle care, nurture, and routine, transforming them from fleeting playthings into lasting monuments.
The title carries a quiet duality. To "play house" evokes the innocence of a child imitating adulthood: setting up miniature kitchens, rehearsing tenderness, and mimicking responsibility. It also gestures toward the adult performance of domestic harmony, the curated tableaux of home life, the fragile theatre of togetherness.
Bahram’s objects oscillate between toy and relic, ornament and offering. In their stillness they ask us to look again at the rituals and props that shape our private worlds, to see how we continue to sculpt love, order, and aspiration from the material traces around us. Still pretending. Still playing.