Opening 26th June 2020
On view until 17th July 2020

The fairyland atmosphere of Mahya Giv is highly expressive. A nature that its original elements are borrowed from reality and have been transformed to form the artist’s imaginary world. By layering and using thick layers of oil paint, she creates a depth that allows the viewer to enter the artwork. In the larger works, it is as if a portal is created to carry the humans back to the virgin first days of the earth when all was unspoiled. Her brush strokes jostle and smother one another, suggesting a furiously physical painting process and a measured communion with the subject matter.
Presenting dreamy landscapes filled with detail and specs of movement and light, the elements in the paintings appear to be alive. There is a sense of timelessness, a serenity that oozes with the sounds of birds and the whistle of the vegetation in the wind. This is the image of the infinite, the passive contemplation of the eternal during a temporary moment. Her paintings are an aesthetic rendition of freedom and infinity, but at the same time hint at a sublime threat, as is the nature of the natural world.
Fragility and capriciousness are beautifully hinted at in her works. In her installations, elements such as woven cotton are equally magical and ephemeral and are part of a circle that fluctuates between the paintings and the real world. The series can be a preface to the artist’s own Encyclopaedia Botanica: The essential reference guide to native and exotic plants of a magical land. Praise of all things natural, the gift of life, and the essence of being.
This is a blessed abode, the promised land, a landscape where dreams can become a reality. A redeeming answer to the chaos, instability, and frustration that the Persians have always endured.