"Mastouri, the Immortal Birth of Beauty"

Original text in Farsi by Pegah Rajamand

Translated to English by Soheila Habibi

Artworks provide a form of value and knowledge with their cultural ability and affordability, and industries such as fashion and clothing, like other domains that are in contact with daily life, to legitimize the function of their products and add to their importance, combine visual capabilities. Visual works such as paintings and sculptures are used with wearable products. Emphasis on visual effects in the field of fashion implicitly reminds of the cultural value hidden in works of art and shows the awareness of its producers towards the effect of visual art on what they present. In fact, this is a solution for industries that use a combination of multiple knowledge and use the enchanting features of visual works to motivate their audiences and make them satisfied.

Visual similarities of visual and fashion fields can also be realized through the use of designs, signs, and icons; for example, the use of famous history of art images on a dress or the three-dimensional shape of a sculpture on a hat sometimes gives those products more value. Recognizable visual signs in a garment, praise visual capabilities by referencing their original context, and their possible nostalgic meanings also make the glamor used in the presented product seem defensible. What is beautiful is captivating and charming. The fashion system creates unconventional charms by concealing its goals in using aesthetic functions and combining them with what is wearable. Through luxury, such industries respond to the unique needs and tastes of viewers and buyers, or by restoring nostalgia, they revive the sense of the memories value in us. The way of treating the audience in the fashion industry and what causes them to attract attention has been noticed in the show "Mastouri; "the Immortal Birth of Beauty" by Nahid Behboodian.

Nahid Behboodian was born in Tehran in 1983, is a graphics graduate, and is active in the field of visual arts and fashion. As an interdisciplinary artist, she has been exhibiting her works at different galleries in Iran and other countries for a decade. "Mastouri" is the second solo show of Behboodian in collaboration with Mohsen Gallery. This show, like the artist's previous works, shows her interest in concepts such as growth, life, death, and immortality and presents these issues in the context of two-dimensional and three-dimensional artworks of plants and flowers and their combination with organic and decorative forms.

"Mastouri", which was held from 28 August to 18 September 2022 was an installation of artworks at the Pasio of Mohsen Gallery. The show seeks to find similarities in the functional system of the fashion industry, the cycle of evolution, and the survival of poisonous flowers. It also introduces beauty and seduction as the main arrangement. A volumetric installation of a flower with eye-catching details next to other works is an attempt to show what is beautiful and its survival which depends on beauty as well. Nahid Behboodian's works in the "Mastouri" show, which show the simultaneous visual mentality and the artist's tendency towards the fashion industry, are divided into several categories:

A gigantic volume of a flower with pompous decorations and hidden and obvious details representing a seductive plant. This work is made with fabric and its decoration shows a long creating procedure to make it as beautiful and attractive as possible. What can be seen in its background also shows the roots, vessels, and details of a giant plant growth environment. Considering the dressing room, align with the large flower installation, the artist refers to the similarities of the influence of the fashion system and the audience's entrapment in the clutches of its aesthetic applications. She reconstructs what is supposed to be seen from this point and the influencing process of the fashion industry by showing the procedure of documenting and forming the "Mastouri" installation, as a collaborative project with Diza fashion studio. In this way, by creating visual similarities between fabric volumes on a smaller scale, which are actually fantasy hats in the shape of flowers and plants, and his huge flower installation in the Pasio, the artist metaphorically shows the audience's fascination with the fashion industry, and by attributing the understanding of aesthetic issues to non-human species, compares them with humans regarding the way they attract to beauty.

The usage of small volumes or hats is shown in the photographs mounted on the gallery wall. The recorded images and the atmosphere created in them are the results of Nahid Behboohdian's collaboration with Iranian designers and Alireza Fani's photography skills. They also draw the viewer's attention to the poses of human models in the frame with strange hats on their heads.

In the exhibition space of "Mastouri", several designs and a painting with an emphasis on the shapes of flowers can be seen, which represents the way Behboodian has studied and practiced the forms of flowers and plants and also shows her fascination with this subject from the past to the present.

The reconstruction of the artist's studio with full details of objects on the table and a wall of books, large and small volumes and different cameras, sketches and prototypes of volumes and clothes, reveals the sources of inspiration and visual and written studies of Behboohdian. It also invites the viewer to watch the mind of an artist who is caught in the trap of the seductive charms of the visual and fashion fields.

Cover and slider image:

• https: mohsen.gallery