Unstable conditions
Untitled from the series “Unstable Conditions”, Oil on canvas, 100x130cm, 2020
Roya Khadjavi Projects and Massoud Nader are delighted to present “Unstable Conditions”, the solo exhibition of paintings by Iranian-born artist Zeynab Movahed opening on April 5th, 2022, and on view thru April 18th at High Line Nine, Gallery 9.1 in Chelsea, New York.
In this exhibition Khadjavi and Nader will showcase 12 intricate and masterfully executed oil paintings from the artist’s most recently completed series. Delicately layered with a clever combination of reflections and shadows, highlights and dark spots, this body of works is made of intertwined and sometimes broken shapes which is parallel to the actual world of the artist herself and women like her. According to the artist it depicts “an unstable visual world in which everything is restless and continuously changing”. The mercurial aspect of life in Iran with its “continuous uncertainties is the essence of our major instability, and the core of our existence says Movahed. “Live. Exist or be Absent”.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 20 pages catalogue with an essay titled “Women on the Threshold” by Dr Behnam Kamrani, renowned Iranian Multimedia artist, Art director and University professor.
“Reflections, fragments of faces and bodies and objects and plants, lights and shadows: Zeynab Movahed’s recent paintings show the world in the form of a daily experience. The reflection of glass, which creates both a mirror position and its back, is thus used as an instrument for the artist to depict the unstable and changing world of the Corona epidemic. In these images, everyday life goes beyond its visual aspects and emphasizes the life of this era, which is profoundly changing, unpredictable, and at the same time based on the value of life and its moments.” Dr Behnam Kamrani.
About the Artist
Born in Tehran-Iran in 1981, Zeynab Movahed holds a BA and an MFA in painting from Tehran’s Art and Architectural Azad University.
She has been painting professionally since 1999 and has held 9 solo exhibitions and has participated in more than fifty group exhibitions, biennials and art fairs in Iran and internationally in England, USA, France, Pakistan and Kuwait.
Her paintings focus on the challenges contemporary Iranian women face in their daily lives which are sometimes problematic due to gender imbalance between men and women in the Muslim world and at other times euphoric because of the strength and resistance of these same women.
Through her many artistic periods, Movahed has purposefully, continuously and without judgement portrayed snapshots and details of the often neglected feminine life.
In her new body of work “unstable conditions”, she has chosen as subject matter a more visible woman going about her social life and away from the privacy of her home.
Movahed lives and works in Tehran.
Artist: Zeynab Movahed