maryam farshad

Opening on 21st July 2023
On view until 11th August 2023

Artists:
Mehdi Farhadian, Nasim Davari, Fatemeh Bahman Siyahmard, Koosha Moossavi, Maryam Farshad, Shaqayeq Ahmadian, Hamed Sahihi, Sara Tavana, Shahryar Gharaei, Maryam Farzadian, Marjian Hoshiar, Sanahin Babajanians, Sara Assareh, Shahrzad Argahinejad, Siamak Nasr, Leila Nouraei

The exhibition aims to bring together a divergent set of works. Representing, but also upsetting, the relationship between the artists and their connection to reality. Spheres that contain paradoxes and manage to juxtapose the ideal with the unattainable.
Breaking away from the harsh realities is a Persian Tradition manifested in our literature and arts, even in our timeless tradition of humor. The tough realism of every day is compensated by stepping into another dimension, cherishing illusions that replace the real world.
Here are exaggerated floating spaces – a placeless place- yet in connection with the spaces that remain outside them. Within these spaces, we are alive, free of borders and restrictions, away from the mundane, and separated from the gloom that engulfs our land. Able to float in an archipelago of plurality, as we are supposed to.
Nazila Noebashari

Opening on 24th February 2023
On View until 17th March 2023

Artists:
Farhad Ahrarnia, Shaqayeq Ahmadian, Sara Assareh, Samira Eskandarfar, Mohamad Eskandari, Ebrahim Eskandari, Reihaneh Afzalian, Sanahin Babajanians, Fatemeh Bahman Siyahmard, Dadbeh Bassir,Parisa Taghipour, Sara Tavana, Manijeh Hejazi, Parisa Hejazi, Sara Hosseini, Zari Hosseini, Hamid Hemayatian, Anahita Darabbeigi, Nasim Davari, Raoof Dashti, Navid Salajegheh, Sara Soleimani Qashqayi,Amir Hossein Shahnazi, Hamed Sahihi, Nastaran Safaei, Bahar Samadi, Kiarang Alaei, Maryam Farzadian, Mayram Farshad, Mehdi Farhadian, Naghmeh Ghassemlou, Amirali Ghasemi, Narges Mohamadian, Shirin Mellatgohar,Koosha Moossavi, Parsoua Mahtash, Elmira Mirmiran, Allahyar Najafi, Siamak Nasr, Nazgol Nayeri, Leila Nouraei, Mohammad Hamzeh, Marjan Hoshiar.

Don’t be sad, my land!
I have planted flower seeds in your wounds
One day there will be flower everywhere…
Alireza Roushan

For Women, For Life, For Freedom

It is through artistic creations that Iran reveals her true self and this many believe constitutes her most precious legacy. The Persian legacy has endured many turbulences of history. No historical shock has been able to break the chain. There were interruptions, yet they always permitted even provoked a resumption of creativity; ideas, styles, techniques forcefully imposed, were accepted and integrated in to our existing practice. The Iranian spirit is a tenacious one, we can endure extremes and at the same time our thousands of years of history teaches us to remain optimistic and persistent.
Throughout the last forty-four years of our perpetual revolution, the visual artists have had to carve their independence; in the first years the universities were purged through the so-called Cultural Revolution and artists and professors had to look for other jobs or start private classes. Many left the country. Although it was a difficult struggle, but they succeeded in achieving autonomy from a Regime that controls the distribution of our national wealth and would never support progressive arts. This resilient attitude which is now adapted by the younger generations, was very important in the recent difficult times where despite pressures and the fears, the visual arts has stood its ground and has been an outspoken and integral part of the structure of our brave civil society.
Our artists continue to consciously challenge the status quo and the peripheral environment as well as themselves. They insist on their sense of independence and persist in their capabilities like all other modern human beings. They help preserve a Persian legacy, enriching our lives and inspiring us as a nation to become better than we are. It is this perseverance and humility that is the source of the merit of Iranian arts and its limitless potential.
We are constantly reminded of our legendry bird: The Phoenix who is believed to possess the knowledge of all times, from ashes she rises to create wonderment, she plunges in to flames to be purified , to rise again, every time stronger, every time mightier.
Nazila Noebashari

Opening on 8th July 2022
On view until 5th August 202

Fatemeh Bahman Siyahmard- Parisa Taghipour- Elmira Mirmiran- Maryam Farshad- Koosha Moossavi- Ebtehaj Ghanadzadeh- Noushin Jafari- Faezeh Baharlou. Siamak Nasr.

The exhibition aims to bring together a divergent set of works. Representing, but also upsetting, the relationship between the artists and their connection to reality. Spheres that contain paradoxes and manage to juxtapose the ideal with the unattainable.
Openings and closings.
Slices cut off from the real world and shaped by emotional needs: Somewhere Else.
Breaking away from the harsh realities is a Persian Tradition manifested in our literature and arts, even in our timeless tradition of humor. The tough realism of the everyday is compensated by stepping into another dimension, cherishing illusions that replace the real world.
Here are exaggerated floating spaces- a placeless place- yet in connection with the spaces that remain outside them. Within these spaces, we are alive, free of borders and restrictions, away from the mundane, and separated from the gloom that engulfs our land. Able to float in an archipelago of plurality, as we are supposed to.
Nazila Noebashari

Opening on 8th April 2022
On view until 22nd April 2022

In the course of its development and throughout its lifetime, every phenomenon depicts the manifestation of a diversity of forms. The outcome of this process is expressed by a sequence of patterns and through repetition and self-emulation. This movement gives life to the structure of our world, and, at every glance, the creation moves from chaotic forms towards constructive order. There is a bond between nature and the extent to which we are aware of ourselves, a bond consistently evolving through perception. This transformation takes place in the context of countless interactions and interpretations. Throughout this process, the mind operates as a single unit, capable of adapting countless patterns and simultaneously creating different interpretations and possibilities with its inner revelations.
The external world is infinite, and a manifestation of this world moves forward indefinitely deep within us. Uniformity of observation provides an opportunity for these two worlds to become one. This interpretation might result from an ancient connection between us and what lies ahead; a small component acting as a mirror to put a grand existence on display. Looking deep within brings us face-to-face with our imagination. We begin a journey of discovery to the depths of everything, reaching their most fundamental particles. Having been mere observers just moments before, we are now the creators of what we see, binding what moves and its movement in one existence.
This collection looks to discover how forms created simultaneously through chaos and order are developed and diversified, thus bringing countless possibilities together. In exploring life, I have come across signs and gained visual experiences, some of which I explicitly display here, with another part being the result of what I have read, seen, and not seen through my experiences, all imaginatively interwoven together. Along this path, the experience of different situations and familiarity with the ideas of those that came before us provided me with proper conditions for favorable growth, opening the doors toward this common mentality. Through research on how natural structures and the geometry concealed in the depths of phenomena are formed, I was led to discover the patterns and inner secrets of this order in our minds. This journey within reflected the boundless world of connections that poetically expands. There is a collective movement in which all the pieces are so well-placed that the displacement of any single one does not disrupt the continuity of life as a whole, with the “whole” maintaining an independent existence from the sum of its parts.
Excerpts of Artist’s text for catalog

Opening on 4th March 2022
On view until 1st April 2022

Manijeh Armin- Tajsar Jafari- Marjan Hoshiar- Koosha Moossavi- Arezoo Shahdadi- Shahrzad Araghinejad- Mehdi Farhadian- Allahyar Najafi- Parsoua Mahtash- Mohammad Eskandari- Nastaran Safaei- Parisa Taghipour- Mahya Giv- Maryam Farshad- Sara Tavana- Rene Saheb- Manijeh And Parisa Hejazi- Salé Sharifi

A Flower Blossoms for its Own Joy.
Oscar wilde

We celebrate the arrival of the Iranian New Year and a New Century by showcasing works of artists whose practice is mostly influenced by nature. On this occasion, it is fitting to quote an Ode to A Garden Carpet – By an unknown Sufi Poet (Circa 1500):
Here in this carpet lives an ever-lovely spring, un-scorched by summer’s ardent flame, safe too from autumn’s boisterous gales, Mid winter’s cruel ice and snow, ‘Tis gaily blooming still. Eyes hot-seared by desert glare find healing in its velvet shade. Splashing foundations and rippling pools in cool retreats, sore-wearied limbs restore, and tired hearts awaken with joy. The way was cruel.
Baffled by monotony and mocked by phantoms, delirious, beset by stalking death in guises manifold; The dreaded jinns, the beasts ferocious, the flaming heat and the exploding storms; from all these perils here at last set free; in the Garden all find security.
Here the long-laboring Earth, at last, gives birth. From apparent death, a new and lovely world is born; the jacinth imprisoned lies below the desert’s dusty floor. The stony wilderness is so bleak and bare, in ageless patience broods, aware of life within, the promise of fertility and abundance. Ever longing for deliverance. The world, at last, reveals its destiny.
Can we not then capture and restore The loveliness that gave us hope, still brightly mirrored on memory’s gliding waters or snared in the poets’ invisible net, so wide, so fragile, yet captor and conqueror of realities elusive?
Wrought in gold and azure, bright as carved metal. Dream-like foliage in sparking tones is caught, or else, in sumptuous shades of glossy lacquer, quiet but intense; in muffled browns and honey pure, Jasper cool and mellow cinnabar, that fairyland comes real again.
In sudden collisions, find sweet embrace; in rhythms enchanting, with stately pace, rollicking speed; emerging, retreating, reversing, in peaceful finality. Their conflicts reconcile, all in confederation blending like a chorus in part-song gladly singing, In contrapuntal play rejoicing, floating soft or wildly free, yet anchored in eternity.

Opening on 19th February 2021
On view until 2nd April 2021

Featured artists:
Farhad Ahrarnia- Koosha Moossavi- Shirin Mellatgohar- Arezoo Shahdadi- Farshid Davoodi- Shahrzad Araghinejad- Mehdi Farhadian- Farid Jafari Samarghandi- Navid Salajegheh- Fatemeh Bahman Siyahmard-
Safora Fadaie- Maryam Farshad- Elmira Mirmiran- Mani Ramhormoozi & a project by Fatemeh Fazael Ardakani

The works in the exhibition aim to show the universality and individuality of Iranian contemporary artists. The appeal of paper as the raw material that has attracted artists for centuries remains strong. The works that will be on view are a sample of the diversity of practices of Iranian artists today, that persist in their individuality and carve their own paths. It is an adventure worth following, one that is as old as written history.

• The exhibition is the last of this year’s pandemic and a celebration in anticipation of a new year and a new century.

Opening on 22nd November 2019
On view until 8th December 2019

The world around us is an interaction of diverse spectra. While each spectrum has its own meaning, next to each other, they find a new character and illustrate the influence of meaning and identity of the other. As a part of this spectra, we connect with the whole universe, the cosmos, and the phenomenon of life. In the meantime, we can directly observe the interrelation between these fragments and ourselves. All these observations and connectivity take shape within the context of time.

Time at any second and at any location creates a different image, and, as an abstract concept, the forms resolve and dissolve these layers of spectra. The landscapes we perceive are the result of multiple layering in time, with each layer carrying a wide range of data and information across the span of time- from the past to the future- and their impact on each other creates the images that we ultimately encounter.
In this series of works, Cosmos, as part of a wide range of spectra, has an abstract meaning too. The intertwined forms, the silence, and the vacuum all create subjective abstract images which form the common linear patterns of our visual experience of nature and the world around us. We have a sense of association and seemingly emotional connection to the cosmos, but where does this sense of deep connection come from?

I’m searching for the origins of these connections in science and expressing my ideas through art by combining different mediums. Searching for these concepts and visualizing them next to my lived experiences makes up my consciousness, a fluid and dynamic world, moving towards a kind of abstraction with a heavy load of layered data.
In the book, A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence M.Krauss writes: Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.

All this data creates an extensive network of connections, so all the elements are intertwined in this global puzzle structure. In this series, I have extracted and studied pieces of this puzzle. Ultimately I have compiled a summary of my observations and connection with the world around me in a small format. Connected Spectra narrates my personal experiences in encountering nature and the connections that have taken shape in this personal domain.

Maryam Farshad