ARTIST
STATEMENT
My work explores the concept of marginalization and the experience of being “rendered invisible and unheard” (Ferguson et al., 1990). I point out the different ways of looking at one story and narrate the experience of members of minority communities. My focus is on the discriminatory experiences I had all my life in Iran, my homeland, and how these have given me a feeling of erasure and invalidity during my life.
PORTFOLIO
CRITICAL REFLECTION
“I am not a tale to be told
Not a song to be sung
Not a sound to be heard
Or something that you can see
Or something that you can know
I am Common Pain
Cry me out”
Ahmad Shamlou
In these short essays, I will outline and reflect on some of the ideas and techniques that inform my current painting research and practice.
My work is mostly about marginalisation: The complex and disputatious process by means of which certain people and ideas are privileged over others at any given time. (Ferguson et al., 1990) I explore my own discriminatory experiences with my art practice and create dialogues about the experience of marginalised individuals and groups with the viewer.
I believe in dialogue, as Paulo Freire states: a human phenomenon that is an existential necessity (Freire, 2005). He says that to dialogue is to name the world. “Human existence cannot be silent, nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words” (Freire, 2005). In Freire’s words, love, humility, intense faith in humankind, hope, and critical thinking are vital elements of dialogue, which I consider essential factors of my art practice.
