Razi University

   Abstract This research was conducted with the aim of exploring the lived experience of Kermanshahi women artists in the fields of painting, illustration, and graphic design. The main problem of this research is how this experience is shaped in relation to social, cultural, and gendered contexts and how it manifests in the creation of works and in the construction of these women’s artistic identity. The research was carried out with a qualitative approach and a phenomenological theoretical horizon, relying on the thought of Merleau-Ponty and with limited use of the complementary concepts of de Beauvoir and Giddens. Data were collected from open and in-depth interviews with 19 women artists aged 26 to 69, residing in Kermanshah, Tehran, and outside Iran, and were analyzed through question-oriented qualitative content analysis based on the four research questions. The findings showed that the experience of these women involves both limitations and possibilities. The shortage of educational and exhibition spaces, weak institutional support, and familial and gendered pressure have for many led to a sense of not being seen and isolation, yet for some of the women artists it has been a motivation for creating new spaces. Artistic identity is an ongoing and unfinished path that moves from technical training to personal expression and for most participants carries the meaning of resistance and salvation. Memories, everyday life, and social and personal events are also, sometimes overtly and sometimes indirectly, visible in the themes of the works and in the embodied process of their creation. The narratives were not uniform and, in each axis, dominant, tension-filled, and distinct narratives were separated from one another; the participants’ differing relations to Kermanshah and Kurdish culture also revealed the identity-cultural dimension of the experience. The conclusion of the research is that the lived experience of these women is both affected by social conditions and itself constructive, and that art for them is not merely a representation of the city but a way of being present in it    Keywords: lived experience, women artists, Kermanshah, painting, artistic identity, phenomenology