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Shirin Mellatgohar

Opening on 17th May 2024
On view until 7th June 2024

Gilgamesh, one of the oldest stories in the world, is an epic born in the land where I was born, which is close to where I live now. Gilgamesh is a story of life and death, rejecting death and eventually surrendering to it, somewhere between denial and acceptance. Gilgamesh’s narrative is a path to reach immortality, the process of searching and finding the “plant of immortality”. More than all the characters and events of the epic, my attention was drawn to this plant. Holding on to hope and searching for it was similar to our lives and times. Visualizing this plant takes me to imaginary gardens, at a time when taking refuge in color and flowers was the only way to persevere. To find this plant, a path had been taken, it had been found and lost, and to find it, you had to really listen to the story of the great storm. The great storm reminded me of the survivors of all similar storms that always come to and realization that we are among the survivors.
For my adaptation of this multi-layered story, besides paintings I chose other materials. Gilgamesh’s dress is my father’s old Disdasheh. With my stitches and textures, crocheting and different tapestry techniques, and the broken old dolls that was a relic of the time I was working with the children of labor, the Rhytons and small sculptures appeared. I used the sewing techniques of my teenage years to make a large fabric piece. I made the plant, and to complete it I used the parts I have been making for years. The braided and woven pieces are made of old clothes and pieces sewn by my Mother and aunt, the old threads of rosaries that my Father brought home from the Husseinyeh as well as the dried branches that I had collected during the pandemic and had woven my threads around them, and the burnt lamps that are painted, they are all part of it.
This is the story of Resilience and Perseverance of me and millions of others in this region. We fall and then rise. We make new stories from ruins and remnants and live with our heads held up. There is No End to us.

Shirin Mellat Gohar
Spring of 2024

Group Exhibition

Artworks:

Curated by Mahoor Toosi

Artists:
Farhad Ahrarnia- Shirin Mellatgohar – Allahyar Najafi – Aidin Bagheri — Maryam Farzadian- Sofia and Behzad Hatefi -Nastaran Safaei — Atefeh Khas – Amin Shojaei – Rene Saheb
Opening on 6th August 2021
On view until 20th August 2021

What is gathered in this exhibition are sub-narratives that are identified by the narrator as the point of reference and source of its validation. The memory of objects has changed so much that looking at their point of origin cannot be fully recognized; what seems obvious is questioned by the shifting of the point of view, and what is considered convincing is viewed with skepticism. These recycled works are born out of accidents and incidents and reborn through the act of recovery and by overcoming the turmoil. Facing the question of “Remember R,” these works are a reminder of: What should I remember? How do I remember? By clinging to the lost past and drowning in nostalgia? Or are we to be accused of not having a historical memory?
Mahoor Toosi

Group Exhibition of Works with Paper and on Paper

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.
Solo exhibition of Shirin Mellatgohar

Opening at Aaran Gallery on 19th January 2018

Art has been my instrument to return to my roots. To wounds, joys, childhood, war and all that has created duality in me. In these years I have been preoccupied with realities and experiences of past and present, I go back and forth. The images in this exhibition are the result of my deliberations and reminders or my encounters with the events that shape my life, next to my day dreams.
Art for me is articulation of my lived experience that is often entwined with events in my country and the region that I live in. The joys and sorrows that involves a generation, and living in a region with different ethnic groups with diverse languages and cultures, sharing a common inheritance which is woven with threads of fear and pain.
The woven works are the result of anxious moments. These dates came in to my life after the death of my cousin in the city of Mosel. Date is a fruit that grows in both of my lands: that of my birth place and the one that I live in.
My joy and laughter after each city is liberated, my fears and screams when another city falls to ruins; all of it flows in me simultaneously. This is part of the life of thousands, millions of people living in Middle East: always anxious, always expecting: that rain that is supposed to fall on fire, when will it rain down on our torched easterly land.*
Shirin Mellatgohar

  • Sogol Moghavvem Ghafari


A selection by Behrang Samadzadegan and Aaran Gallery
Fereydon Ave – Hossein Valamanesh
Shaqayeq Arabi – Hamid Arabi – Mohamad Eskandari – Nasser Bakhshi – Fatemeh Bahman Siahmard – Sahand Hesamiyan – Elaheh Hosseini – Baktash Sarang Javanbakht – Amir Nasr Kamgooyan – Shirin Mellatgohar – Nogol Mazloumi – Hooman Mehdizadeh Jafari.
Opening on 25th December at Aaran Projects.

Works assembled in this exhibition are product of poetic subjectivity of their creators; works that travel through time and space and are unrestrained by the realities of the world. Defying gravity (both as a natural force and in complexity of situation), in form and concept, these group of works suggest motion and fluidity and by blending what is stable and what is mobile, gracefully portray the uncertainties of our era and world in general.

The lyrical force of Iranian art and its gentle allegorical curves are part of the concept of this exhibition. The interaction of shifting elements, resembles the balancing act inherent in Persian poetry; the lows and highs, the melody and pace, the harsh and the soft. Forms move through time and space and return to the real world as artistic actualities, ultimately reaching a stability in which all forces are equal.

A number of artists present in this exhibition are known for their exalted style and progressive attitude, next to them we are show casing works by younger artists who are unconventional and unrestrained in their practice. The constellation of these set of works is an attempt to reveal part of what is true and persistent in Iranian art today; a boundless potential for ecstasy and agony, a consistent struggle to deny darkness and to progress despite obstacles, in other words a balancing act.