THE NATURAL WORLD HAS PROVIDED INSPIRATION FOR COUNTLESS ARTISTS, EACH IN their own way, and it’s often a matter of different artists, different worlds.

For Jim Afroukhteh, it was different countries.

Born in the city of Hamadan, Iran, in 1954, Afroukhteh was enthusiastic about art from an early age. He started painting around age 7, was always the best at drawing in school and also won high marks in calligraphy, a highly valued skill in Iran in that era.

“But I mostly painted and drew for fun on my own,” he says. “It wasn’t until I started a flower-making business in my later years that I exercised my art skills as something I could make money with.”

As a young man Afroukhteh made and sold artificial plants and flowers on the streets of Hamadan and later in Tehran. “It was my first art-driven business,” he says. “By crafting realistic artificial flowers, I turned creativity into my first source of income and discovered that art could be both expressive and profitable.”

After a period of residence in Spain, he emigrated to the United States in 1982, settling in the southeast. Soon he was immersed in the reselling of art and antiques.

But with growing skill and expertise, he undertook restoration work in art and antique frames. By 1993, Afroukhteh was creating custom frames and producing his own artwork. The latter took center stage in the early 2000s and has remained his exclusive focus. The artist divides his time between landscapes, abstracts, impressionism and depictions of wildlife.

Today, it is the landscapes of Georgia and the eastern United States that are his principal inspiration. Settling in Atlanta turned out to be serendipitous. “Originally, I applied for political asylum through the United Nations and hoped to go to Canada, since my best friend, Mohammad, had recently moved to Toronto,” Afroukhteh recalls. “Strangely enough, my Canadian and European applications were denied, but the United States—known for being the most difficult to get into—approved me. Atlanta was assigned through my caseworker. But it turned out to be a wonderful coincidence.”

The similarity of terrain between Hamadan and Atlanta was purely coincidental yet also proved fortuitous. “I’ve always loved the mountains,” Afroukhteh says. “I grew up climbing in Hamadan and even scaled Mount Damavand, the highest peak in Iran. When I later lived in Tehran and then Spain, I lost that connection for a while—but being near the mountains again in Georgia has been a pleasant reminder of home.”

His stay in Madrid in the late 1980s saw the beginnings of his professional career in art, with both the country’s artists and its distinctive architecture having a significant influence.

The wellspring of Afroukhteh’s creative journey may have flowed long before Spain, but when he moved to Madrid, he was invigorated by witnessing young people filling the streets with music, paintings and ideas. “That energy reminded me how much I loved creating things with my hands, and it inspired me to take art more seriously,” he says.

However, Afroukhteh says his style is in no way imitative of the Spanish artists he admired, not the least of whom was El Greco, nor of any particular art movement then exerting influence in Spain. “It was more the experience of being surrounded by that culture—the architecture, the light, the people—that shaped me as a person and later showed up naturally in my work,” he says.

After relocating to the United States, initially Afroukhteh worked odd jobs in restaurants, quickly discovering he preferred to work for himself. In 1993 he opened a resale business of art and antiques, starting with a small space in an antiques market and restoring pieces out of “necessity and curiosity.”

“Over time I became known for custom framing and eventually partnered with companies like Art Image, which began selling my artwork to major clients in High Point, North Carolina, and beyond,” he says.

Getting established was no small feat. “It was very difficult at first. Having the skill is one thing, finding buyers and building a name is another,” he notes. “It took time, patience and persistence.”

Afroukhteh ran the business for roughly 12 years, on and off. During that time, he also painted, but restoration and framing were his main income sources. Eventually, he realized that creating original art was more rewarding than anything else. “In the mid-2000s, I made the conscious decision to stop focusing on antiques and framing and devote myself entirely to painting,” he says. “It simply made me happier, and I wanted to build a life around what I loved most.”

Of the four art genres in which he works as a painter, landscapes are closest to his heart. “I’ve always felt deeply connected to nature,” he says. “Every view feels like magic to me, and I love interpreting that beauty on canvas in my own way. The variety of seasons, the soft light and the texture of the forests here in Georgia all remind me of the mountains of Iran, but with their own personality. It’s endlessly inspiring.”

There is no conscious motif connecting his genres, Afroukhteh says. He believes each piece is unique but all share an emotional fingerprint. “Even if I’m painting similar subjects, every work comes from a different feeling or moment,” he adds.

While he admires the Impressionists for their use of light, his own style developed more from intuition than imitation. “My influences are emotional and experiential—places I’ve lived, people I’ve met, the feeling of belonging or solitude,” he explains.

Not one to be labeled or put in a box, he characterizes his approach as freestyle. “I don’t like to confine myself to one category,” Afroukhteh says. “Nature and emotion often guide me, and even a simple subject—a crane, a boat, a forest—becomes a reflection of what I’m feeling at that time. Which is why I can have abstracts that vary wildly compared to some of the landscapes you might see at first.”

Afroukhteh works primarily in oils but also utilizes acrylics and mixed media depending on his subject or mood. He says oils allow him to blend color and texture more naturally. “They feel alive on the canvas. But this varies depending on my mood and even the current state of my studio,” he notes.

In addition to painting and building custom frames, Afroukhteh added sculpture painting to his repertoire. He painted a police officer Buck statue for the Bucks in Buckhead project in 2012. His works in this vein can be found in numerous commercial and residential collections.

Today, he shows regularly in the Southeast. Exhibitions or shows vary year to year, but he appears reliably at Scott Antique Markets in Atlanta every first weekend of the month.

Given his journey to artistic accomplishment, Afrou