Artists: Laleh Ardestani, Niloufar Abedi, Sara Abbassian, and Samira Nowparast
For the four artists whose works have been show cased in this collection, the concept of “Private Spaces” provides a medium to return to one’s roots. This reference that is full of metaphors, in dissecting an invisible cocoon, and transcending from external layers into the most internal elements while resembling the passage from a public and forbidden area to an internal and allowed spectrum, has become part of the theme. Niloufar Abedi, in a mixture of confrontation and contradiction sits her figurines on a canvas of shadows and blue and green colors inspired by nature, resembling a heavenly safe place. At times a fear of constant threats, sometime in folic form and sometimes in a caravan of geometric figures with metallic colors bases is constantly occupying the atmosphere of the canvas. Although geometric volumes, with angles and evident perimeter lines, are a reminder of a place to live and rest but with the constant gravitation towards taking refuge in their shadows, one continually feels terrified of fractures and destruction of figures from within. Samira Nowparast illustrates this familiar fear and agitation with her jagged creatures that appear on the surface of the canvas in an atmosphere wrapped in a white haze. And sometimes by extending the jaggedness of the creatures along the length of the art work, she stresses confrontation and face off between internal private spaces and the external ones with fragile and transparent borders. Round, continuous, fluid and dark volumes stick out of the geometric frameworks of the work so that compositions can transcend over borders and limitations and either be consumed by the onslaught of jaggedness or to devour and dissolve them inside themselves. Laleh Ardestani, following a period of expressive show casing of humanly bodies full of emotion, has now taken up a more abstract view. Although one can still see faded shadows of human body mixed in an entangled mass of centric compositions, but in the implementations of her ideal private spaces, this time she chooses a more vague language. A hidden volume of flesh, veins and fat, behind an anatomical curtain, and on the sidelines of re-exposure, is just like cutting through the cocoon of individual isolationism which of course invites the viewer to touch and join humans without pleading with them. Sara Abbasian. If threats and fear in the works of these three artists has an abstract side to it, and the language used is not so direct, in contrast Sara Abbasian’s dynamism produces a clear and truly agitating manifestation. She uses her previously displayed designs as the base so that in a brief animation she can make some sharks move which undoubtedly causes an eternal terror and fear for every viewer. Here, the threat is bare naked and fear, even with the voices that accompany the pictures, infiltrate into the souls of the artist and the viewers.
Hamid Reza Karami