Farah Ossouli is a pivotal figure in contemporary Iranian art. She is renowned for her ability to blend the intricate traditions of Persian miniature painting with urgent modern themes. Her collection, “Listen! Do You Hear the Whistling of Darkness?”, created over nearly a decade, exemplifies this synthesis. It engages with social issues, most notably violence and the oppression of women in the Middle East, through a visual language steeped in Persian aesthetics. This series comprises 21 works that reinterpret iconic artworks from art history as hypotexts and transform them into hypertexts that resonate with contemporary socio-political realities. This study focuses on one piece from the collection: “Me and Goya,” inspired by Francisco Goya’s seminal work, “The Third of May 1808.” The study employs Gérard Genette’s theory of transtextuality to analyze the layered relationships between Ossouli’s hypertext and its two hypotexts: Goya’s painting and Persian miniature conventions. The analysis illuminates how Ossouli reconfigures these sources to address feminist and social concerns, forging a dialogue between historical artistic legacies and present-day challenges. The research is driven by three core questions. What is the nature of the relationship between these visual texts? Which transtextual mechanism dominates Ossouli’s hypertext? What function do the transformations of the hypotext serve? Tackling these inquiries allows the study to decode the complex transtextual dynamics at play and offer insights into how artists draw upon historical works to create new expressions that resonate with modern contexts, particularly within the Iranian and Middle Eastern cultural landscapes. This investigation is significant for its exploration of artistic influence and innovation, as well as its contribution to our understanding of how Persian painting evolves through cross-cultural engagement in a globalized world. This study is based on Genette’s framework of transtextuality, which is an extension of Julia Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality. Genette defines transtextuality as “all that sets a text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts” (Genette, 1997) and categorizes it into five types: intertextuality, paratextuality, metatextuality, architextuality, and hypertextuality. This study focuses on hypertextuality, which is the process by which a hypertext emerges from a hypotext through imitation or transformation. The primary lens here is transformation, which encompasses parody, travestissement, and transposition. This allows for a detailed examination of how Ossouli reworks her sources. The methodology is qualitative, employing a descriptive-analytical approach with a comparative framework. It juxtaposes “Me and Goya” with Goya’s “The Third of May 1808” and Persian miniature traditions. The analysis focuses on shifts in form, content, symbolism, and cultural resonance through Genette’s transtextual categories, emphasizing transformative strategies. Ossouli’s work is deeply rooted in the tradition of Persian miniature painting, which is historically tied to narrative illustration and cultural expression. Modern Iranian artists have adapted this tradition to reflect contemporary shifts. Her collection, “Listen! Do You Hear the Whistling of Darkness?”, inspired by a poignant line from Forough Farrokhzad’s poetry, uses its delicate aesthetic to mask a profound critique of human suffering. In the collection, women are positioned as the primary victims of violence. In Me and Goya, Ossouli engages with Goya’s masterpiece, which depicts Spanish rebels facing execution by French soldiers—a work widely regarded as a cornerstone of modern art for its raw depiction of violence and resistance (Licht, 1979). While studies like Namvar Motlagh’s (2020) on transtextuality and Rajabi and Namvar Motlagh’s (2019) on Behzad’s miniatures offer methodological parallels, this research distinguishes itself by bridging Persian and European artistic traditions through Ossouli’s unique perspective, enriching the discourse on transtextual relationships in art. The analysis reveals that “Me and Goya” relies on transformation, predominantly transposition, as its central transtextual strategy. Ossouli preserves Goya’s compositional framework, including the arrangement of soldiers and victims, while introducing transformative shifts. Most notably, she replaces the male victims in Goya’s work with female figures, redirecting the narrative toward gender-based oppression. This travestissement imbues the work with a feminist critique of patriarchal violence. This gender reversal reinterprets Goya’s anti-violence stance, aligning it with contemporary women’s struggles in the Middle East, where they are often disproportionately affected by systemic violence. Stylistically, Ossouli departs from Goya’s dramatic realism and chiaroscuro by adopting the flat colors, geometric precision, and ornate motifs characteristic of Persian miniature painting. She replaces Goya’s church with a mosque, embedding the scene in an Islamic cultural context. She also incorporates elements such as a crescent moon, floral patterns, and a lyrical sensibility—features absent from Goya’s original work. These alterations exemplify transposition, adapting Goya’s form and message into a distinct aesthetic and thematic framework that resonates with Ossouli’s cultural milieu. The title “Me and Goya” serves as a paratextual device, explicitly acknowledging the hypotext while asserting Ossouli’s creative parity with Goya. She frames this relationship as a shared artistic response to social upheaval, drawing parallels between Goya’s 19th-century Spain and her own experience of modern Middle Eastern conflicts, including violence perpetrated by groups like the Taliban and ISIS (Ossouli, 2021, personal interview). This transtemporal dialogue highlights the continuity of resistance against oppression throughout history and across different regions. Ossouli enriches her hypertext with semiotics, using contrasting patterns—delicate floral designs on women’s clothing versus rigid geometric shapes on soldiers’ uniforms—to reinforce her critique of gender and ideology. These elements highlight the vulnerability of women in the face of militarized power structures. Beyond Goya’s influence, Ossouli’s engagement with Persian miniature traditions adds another layer of transtextuality. She draws from this hypotext through her use of decorative motifs, flat perspectives, and poetic undertones, but transforms it by infusing contemporary feminist and social themes and adapting its historical formalism to her expressive needs. This dual interplay of European and Persian hypotext positions “Me and Goya” as a transcultural artifact, blending disparate artistic lineages into a cohesive narrative. These transformations transcend mere imitation, interweaving cultural, narrative, spatial, temporal, gender, and semiotic shifts into a rich tapestry. Transposition adapts Goya’s structure to Ossouli’s style and context; travestissement critiques patriarchal norms through gender inversion; and traces of parody emerge in her feminist reimagining of violence. These changes honor Goya’s legacy while asserting Ossouli’s artistic agency and addressing modern crises through a fusion of Persian and European aesthetics. The study concludes that Me and Goya exemplifies the power of transtextuality in reinterpreting historical works to make them relevant in the contemporary era. Ossouli’s hypertext provides a new view of violence and gender dynamics in Iranian art, showing how artists can connect the past with the present to critique ongoing social issues. This analysis enhances appreciation of Ossouli’s innovative practice and validates transtextuality as a robust framework for exploring cross-cultural artistic dialogue. It also contributes to broader discussions on the evolution of Persian painting in a global context.