The Rhyme of Ruin

Press release

Haleh Gallery presents the solo exhibition The Rhyme of Ruins by the Iranian artist Mahboubeh Zadehahmadi.

Mahboubeh Zadehahmadi (*1974, Isfahan, Iran) is an Iranian artist who creates her large-scale, pictorial worlds of textiles especially through the expression of the art of printing. Her works should by no means be reduced to graphic prints, but should rather be understood as an intermedial fusion of painting and printing.

Mahboubeh studied art in Teheran and pursued her studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Munich with the professors Norbert Prangenberg and Günther Förg.

In her works Mahboubeh strongly relies on the one hand on persuasive painterly positions and her surreal worlds arise the beholder’s associations with great models of modernist art. The deployment of textiles is very significant in Mahboubeh’s art and demonstrates her deep, local roots with her hometown Isfahan in Iran. Mahboubeh put her artistic inspiration in her own poetic words:

The daily sensations in my atelier,

Waking up everyday and get ready for painting,

Painting until the evening,

Tickle and beat of these days,

These days in Isfahan close to the square Naghsh-e Jahan  (Image of the world),

My house is two minutes away from the square Naghsh-e Jahan,

The sleepiness disappears in the afternoon at the fountain of the square,

The blue tiles of Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque and the tiles with floral ornaments,

A long corridor of qalamkars (printed textiles),

How well everything is interwoven with one another, creating a wonderful artwork (…)

Reading the lines of the poem, permits the beholder of Mahboubeh’s pictures a virtual immersion into the city of Isfahan. The square Naghsh-e Jahan is the city’s centre. The square has tremendous measurements of 560 meters length and 160 meters width. The blue tiles mosques are breath-taking masterpieces of Safavid epoch (1501-1722). The sqare merges several urban purposes and includes among others, mosques, a royal palace and a bazar. When you enter the bazar in Isfahan, one is surrounded by magnificent qalamkars, textiles printed with ornaments, patterns, and motives of heroic stories.

Mahboubeh quotes the medium of printed textiles, which are famous for the city of Isfahan and their location of production. She transfers the traditional mean into contemporary painting. Mahboubeh plays deliberately with motives of Persian art, for instance Khorshid Khanoom, Mrs Sun. The Sun in Iran is being represented as beautiful and attractive woman, with wide eyes, a continuous eyebrow and her black hair emphasizing her smiling face.

The concept of textiles, as weaved fabric, continues substantially in Mahboubeh’s artistic works, as the artist has pointed out in the last line of her poem. Everything is interwoven with one another and that creates a wonderful piece of art.

CV

Mahboubeh Zadehahmadi  (*1974 in Isfahan, Iran) lives and works in Munich. She studied art at the art academy in Tehran and painting at the Fine Arts Academy in Munich with the professors Norbert Prangenberg and Günther Förg.

Exhibitions (selection): “Red”, Haleh Gallery (2013/14), Haus der Kunst München (2009), Golestan Gallery, Teheran, Iran (2009), etc.

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