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Still Life – Myriam Quiel



Solo exhibition of Myriam Quiel
Opening at Aaran Gallery on 5th February 2016

Myriam Quiel’s paintings are depiction of fragments of the circumstances she lives in.
She combines certain impressions of her daily life and by using unimportant objects, she expresses her feelings and her state of mind. The question is always about reality, and how she confronts the realities of her life. The objects that she paints are familiar and in combination create collages that reflect her experiences. She does not attempt to tell stories through her paintings, but rather keeps her stories hidden and well covered, leaving the audience free to make their own interpretation.
She paints Still Lifes, that are chaotic and out of focus, unsteady and indefinite. The fragments of the paintings are meticulously chosen and placed next to each other, but the final work has an unfinished quality, a never ending story. By destroying and rebuilding, she offers a status quo. Her intension is not to search for harmony but to show the unsteadiness of our times. By using trash, discarded toys, withering plants and finally distorting them, she gives a picture of a frozen time. The unfinished state of everything interests the artist, leaving open structures for her to continue painting.
Her Still Lifes are an artificial world, snap shots of the flood of images that surrounds us, in other words, leftovers from daily life stories. She stabilizes abstract patterns in contrast to blurred shapes and draws the gaze of the viewer to her environment. An inanimate world, with commonplace objects, that questions the permanency of life and its realities.

Born in Germany in 1974, Myriam Quiel is a German-Iranian artist based in Tehran. She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden and graduated in 2003. She started her career in 2004 in Berlin and her work has been shown in a number of German galleries. Since 2008 she has settled in Tehran and has held two solo exhibitions in Tehran and her latest solo exhibition titled PIN-UP was organized by Munikat Art Gallery, in 2013.