Shirin Mellatgohar

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

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 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