Artist Statement - Miniatures
Following several exchanges, I met with Ms. Madeleine Frey, the director of Max Ernst Museum in Brühl, Germany. She had previously seen my "Monalisa" (2012), was familiar with my practice of incorporating works of classical painters, and wanted to know if I was interested in doing the same with select works of Ernst. I knew of Ernst from my university years; I was interested in Surrealism as a movement, but works of the artist I had in memory weren’t along my line of work. I walked through the museum and came upon A Week of Kindness (Une Semaine de bonté). In these illustrations, Ernst depicts half-human creatures, metamorphosed beyond recognition, suspended between a world of raw instinct and rationality.
I found A Week of Kindness collection closer to my view of the human condition today. Thematically, they hint at political and social issues, are critical of violence and the ethical breakdown of the modern world. Bodies, hysterical, contorted, exaggerated, and groundless, find themselves in a dark space. The term "hysterical arch" turned into a visual, psychoanalytic metaphor for me — especially when it comes to the bodies of women, suspended between the earth and the sky, wrung in suffering and defiance.
My work makes use of the tradition of Persian painting of the Safavid era Iran to show how the human body and identity is thrown into a state of flux and uncertainty. Traditional elements used in Persian painting – form, figure, ornamentation, poetry – still hold a place in my work and I employ techniques like qalamgiri to arrive at referrals and meanings: Place is no longer a vehicle for relating a romantic or mystic tale; it is used to reflect on pain, crisis, and being a woman today.
Border illuminations are no longer just ornamental tools or ways to give the work a halo of sacredness; they are instruments to represent violence, death, and destruction.
Figures are no longer idealized or bear mythological significance; they are fragile, lonely, and struggling with bitter realities of life.
In Bear Flight in Mind, much like collections of Ernst, contradictory elements show up next to each other: beauty through delicacy appears next to violence in hidden layers of the image. Because of their size, the viewer has to come closer to the work and this proximity leads to an intimate, one-to-one dialogue. Contrary to larger works which impress us from a distance, this collection invites a different kind of contemplation.
Ernst and I share similar historical experiences. Ernst saw both world wars and the hiatus between them; I witnessed revolution, war, and the ensuing social and ideological closure. Violence, repetition of history, repression of women, and the faceless, irresponsible role of the agents of peril – what Hannah Arendt calls the banality of evil – are present in both worlds.
The combination of a man with the head of a rooster, the presence of things that don't belong together, acquiescence to violence, and the presence of violated and vulnerable bodies are common threads that link the world of Ernst to mine.
In my view, the female body is always a battleground of protection, repression, or elimination. In Iranian literature as well as in Western lore, the female hair is at times a savior (a rope to escape, a thread of survival) and at other times an excuse to chastise (shaving off, mutilation). At the same time, women are the big absentees of historical records. In wars, in revolutions, in natural disasters, the injury or injustice leveled at women are by and large ignored. The female body, covered or exposed, is subject to control. The language of art I pursue tries to reveal this safe-kept, castigated, banished narrative.
In Persian mythology, Simurgh is a bird symbolizing wisdom and standing for compassion; high-flying, high-minded, healing, motherly. In this collection, too, Simurgh, much like women in our societies, stands for an inner force that withstand injustice and injury to bring light out of darkness.
I fell in love, became a mother, an artist, but war cast a grey shadow over the blue dome of my country. This dark shadow is still affecting my body and soul >>> Miniatures
June 3, 2025
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