At the end of their
three-week trip, the Iranian artists will travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where
they will be introduced to that city’s artistic community. Matthews said
the bright turquoise and deep sand colors of Alireza Masoumi’s Friday
will strike American viewers as reminiscent of New Mexico landscapes. But
Masoumi’s painting, with “hills [that] resemble human figures under a turquoise
sky” and several traditional Persian symbols, the artist writes, was inspired by
Masoumi’s frequent travels to southern Iran.
Minimalist artist Vahid Hakim, who said he too is
inspired by the desert, re-creates the weaving of ancient Persian saddlebags in
his ink works on paper. Hakim uses intertwining forms to recall the
texture of small mounds of desert soil that are at once hard and
soft.
Two Parrots Picking on a Bowl of
Cherries by Rokneddin Haerizadeh “is full of Persian symbols,” Matthews
said. From the wall fabric to the parrots to the cherries, the artist uses an
impressionist technique to tell a story. “Persian painting has always been
narrative,” Haerizadeh writes in the exhibition notes, “and I am searching for a
modern narrative.” Iranians will understand the meaning of the symbols, Matthews
said, and Americans will enjoy the painting because of its intimate perspective
and use of everyday objects.
Bird in Flight, by expressionist Nargess
Hashemi, was inspired by a poem, but
the artist wants the viewer to use
emotions rather than literary knowledge to
connect with the
painting. (Image courtesy of Nargess Hashemi)
Bird in Flight is inspired by Forough
Farokhzad’s poem “The Bird Was Only a Bird,” but the expressionist
painting is about “feeling,” artist Nargess Hashemi told USINFO. Hashemi
said she does not use traditional symbols in her canvas, which requires viewers’
“emotions, not brains” to connect with the work.
Matthews said many of the artists have been inspired
by the 13th-century Iranian poet Jelaluddin Rumi, including Dream
of a Woman by Afshin Pirhashemi. “I love Rumi’s poetry and make extensive
use of its enigmatic meanings in my work,” Pirhashemi said.
Installation artist Shahnaz Zehtab, whose Mystery
of Creation is based on the theme of an allegorical garden, connoting
Heaven, uses geometric patterns and intervening gaps to refer to the divine
presence in Islamic art. “The azure gaps indicate limitations imposed upon human
beings,” Zehtab writes in her exhibition notes.
Video artists Amirali Ghasemi and Ahmed Nadalian use
projection imagery to approach contemporary life in Iran. Ghasemi’s
light-hearted Coffee House Ladies uses a video recorder to capture
conversations. “Coffee shops in Iran are symbols, to some degree, of social
freedom,” Ghasemi writes in his exhibition notes. To protect the women’s
identities, the artist “blanks” out their faces as they talk about jewelry and
friends.
“They talk about what women talk about everywhere,”
Matthews said. Their small talk does not “say anything significant.”
Nadalian’s Does the River Still Have Fish? is
the artist’s important commentary on environmental destruction. Nadalian carves
simple fish and other forms on stones and river rocks and places them in rivers.
His video shows close ups of the carved rocks “swimming” in rivers threatened by
bulldozers; some of the “fish” become broken along the way.
Matthews said that while Nadalian was in Washington
during the ECA cultural exchange, he took his tools to Rock Creek in northwest
Washington to remove stones and make his carvings there. When he finished, he
returned the Washington “fish” to the creek.
The full text of a press release on the
exhibit is available on the Meridian International Center Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
