Her paintings from this period—characterized by heavy textures, shadowed figures, and recurring symbols of flame and flight—were meditations on exile, memory, and the collective trauma of silenced generations. Her palette darkened, but the presence of light—fragile, flickering, and necessary—remained. Though she was thousands of kilometers from Tehran, her thoughts remained with those who stayed behind. She often said that the exiled artist has a dual responsibility: to preserve what is threatened and to reimagine what is possible. Koban believed that creation was not an escape but a confrontation with history. Her canvases were not merely surfaces of color but battlegrounds where power, pain, and hope met.
