at Jill George Gallery
18 May - 18 June 2010
Curated by David Gleeson and Aras Amiri in collaboration with Azad Gallery in Tehran.
Masoumeh Bakhtiary’s simple, almost graphic pictures are a response to the political turmoil of last summer, exploring political and social unease. Recent graduate, Marzieh Bagheri has produced a fascinating series of paintings that use cars and women to lament the unrealised ambitions of post-revolutionary Iran; and her fellow graduate Azadeh Baluchi has produced beautifully delicate images that examine the position and identity of modern Iranian women. The vividly coloured subjects of Samira Eskandarfar include brief Farsi aphorisms and Kahlo-esque imagery in work that questions the depiction of women everywhere. Khosro Khosravi paints dark and haunting tableaux that paradoxically reveal his skill as a colourist whilst referencing Iranian history and the dichotomy between the public and private realms of its society. Hamed Sahihi’s intriguing paintings, with faceless, confined figures and eerily idealised landscapes, are poetic metaphors for a dreaming, dystopian society. Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaie’s remarkable panels are a personal diary of family life, commenting on the tension of modernity and tradition in the Islamic Republic.
Since the Revolution of 1979, Iran has been depicted as an oppressively rigid and censorious theocracy, provoking both awe and derision in the West. At the same time, it is acknowledged as a centre of fashionable artistic creativity: the films of Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf, for example, have long been acclaimed as hugely important, and exhibitions of Iranian visual arts have appeared at highly prestigious European venues.
But such examples barely scratch the surface of the hugely vibrant and flourishing creative industries in major Iranian cities. Contemporary Iranian art has come of age and is at last being taken seriously by the Western art world. No longer should it be merely confined to exotic shows by institutions keen to prove the width of their international vision. This exhibition will introduce new work by celebrated Tehrani painters for the first time in London alongside some striking imagery from two recent young women graduates of Tehran’s Sooreh University.
It is, As it is, acrylic on canvas, 39.5" x 59", 100 x 150 cm, 2009
It is, As it is, acrylic on canvas, 53" x 78.5", 135 x 200 cm, 2009
Denial, acrylic and ink on canvas, 39.5" x 59", 100 x 150 cm, 2010
Denial, diptych, acrylic and ink on canvas, 39.5" x 39.5", 100 x 100 cm, and 12.5" x 12.5", 30 x 30 cm, 2010
Utopia Ophelia, acrylic on canvas, 47.25" x 39.5", 120 x 100 cm, 2008
Utopia Ophelia, acrylic on canvas, 39.5" x 39.5", 100 x 100 cm, 2008
She Was Alone, oil on canvas, 39.5" x 31.5", 100 x 80 cm, 2008
It's a Cat's Life, oil on canvas, 39.5" x 47.25", 100 x 120 cm, 2008
Silent, oil on canvas, 67" x 51", 170 x 130 cm, 2008
Silent, oil on canvas, 67" x 51", 170 x 130 cm, 2008
What Would You Do?, triptych, acrylic on canvas, 15.75" x 51", 40 x 130 cm, 2010
What Would You Do?, triptych, acrylic on canvas, 15.75" x 51", 40 x 130 cm, 2010
Street, (detail), sextet, oil and mixed media on canvas, 19.5" x 118", 50 x 300 cm, 2009
Untitled, triptych, oil on canvas, 47.25" x 68.5", 120 x 220 cm, 2009
Via Jill George Gallery
Related Link: DAVID GLEESON ON 'FROM TEHRAN TO LONDON'
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