By Syma Sayyah, Tehran
Recently many of us have read that
Meryl Streep is going to portray an Iranian lady painter, that most of us had
not even heard of, in a forthcoming film (see article).
So who is this lady that
Hollywood has
found so interesting? Mokarrameh
Ghanbari, who was born in 1928 in Mazadaran, a region in the north of
Iran, reminds us more of our mothers
or grandmothers than a painter.
This unusual lady, who was sold into
marriage at a very young age
raised nine children and lived with two havoos (a husband’s other wife). She was a farmer and a farmer’s wife most
of her life and at the same time was a seamstress for ten years, hairdresser for
fifteen and a midwife and a healer for many years, before becoming a painter at
age of 67, after her husband died a few years before. This strong lady never went to school
nor had any formal training. She
first started painting when, after a long illness, her children, out of concern
for her health, sold the cows that she was raising. Out of grief, she started to paint,
first on small scraps of paper that she found in the house using natural-made
colors from fruits and trees. Her
very first painting was a portrait of a cow. Some while later, her youngest bought
her some paper and paint from Tehran and she went on to become a real
painter. She started to paint her
house, her door, despite the strange looks and comments from her
neighbors.
In an interview she said that she
paints like a child. Her paintings
are full of stories, most with bright beautiful colors, but there is always some
dark shade somewhere in her works, to bring out that bitter sweet side of life.
Her paintings are her creation of
her recollections of the stories that her husbands used to recite to her as well
as local folk legends, religious tales, her children’s faces, her life and her
dreams. She also got ideas from
stories in the Koran and the Bible and what was going on in her village.
At first she started to paint at
night and would hide her paintings if someone dropped by unexpectedly, because
in her village a farmer should not have anything to do with paper, as it was
considered a waste,
Mr Bablouli
She has had several exhibitions in
Tehran and
abroad. The first one was in1995 at
the Seyhoun Gallery in Tehran; and the latest
one, that I went to, was this week at the Day Gallery in Tehran (No. 1060 ValiAsr
Ave., Opposite Park Saie, Tel. 88700849 - www.dayartgallery.com). I found the works on display so full of
life and colorful even when it showed demon of a story. I met her son Mr Bablouli, at Day
Gallery, who told me that with some friends and prominent members of art and
culture they are preparing a foundation in her name to preserve and show her
works and her small hut up north where she lived and died. I have a few pictures for you from this
visit. You may check her web site
for more pictures and details about her work and her life at www.mokarrameh.com
The exhibition closes on the
29th April.
