Davood Zandian, an Iranian painter, filmmaker, and writer, was born in Tehran. Zandian began his art education in a coffeehouse painters' workshop outside the official and academic environment. During this period, he studied his teachers' traditional and religious icons. Mohammad Farahani and Hossein Hamedani were the first to help him in this direction. As a teenager, between 1969 and 1973, Zandian was drawn to painting movie screens. His progress in iconography had an impact on his subsequent career. In some periods, this iconography takes on the color and smell of coffeehouse paintings, and in other periods it becomes a bridge to a personal reading of Mexican and Soviet revolutionary art and later pop art.

Zandian migrated to Isfahan at the beginning of his youth. This trip allowed him to move towards painting by being influenced by the traditional atmosphere governing this city's art. Being a concerned artist, he pursued political and social art parallel with painting, which can be considered a localized version of Mexican and Soviet paintings. Staying in Isfahan also allowed him to get acquainted with cinema. He became a member of "Isfahan Azad Cinema," made several short films, and took charge of the poster design of some movies of this center. In 1983, he started the "Small Film Workshop'' with the help of his friends and made several animations for radio and television in this series. After holding several group exhibitions in 1986, he immigrated to Norway and settled there. His first solo exhibition was at the Elverum Art Society of Norway In 1991. 

In the 1990s, he turned to writing. Several short and two long stories resulted from this period of his life. Getting to know Odd Nerdrom (one of Norway's prominent painters) marked a new chapter in Zandian's personal and artistic life. After this acquaintance, Zandian's works found their way to prestigious galleries worldwide. Using his experiences in the cinema, he created a period of pop artwork. Most of his works have a nostalgic color, and traces of rejection and longing for the past can be seen in them. His subjects include old elements, but he also seeks to induce a form of antiquity in terms of finish. Zandian considers his paintings to be in the realm of magical realism. In 2021, a solo exhibition of this painter's works was held in Tehran's Iranshahr Gallery.