The work of these two sisters is informed by their upbringing in Iran and a visual vocabulary rooted in the Eastern tradition. Together, they form a set of richly coloured and highly personal reflections on displacement and evolution.///
I believe Persian carpets are not only commodities but are mobile living objects capable of listening and recording the time. Through incorporating myths, tales and fantasies of multiple times, these rugs, in each and every thread woven together, imbibe, delineate and convey simple and complex narratives of life and death, of pain and pleasure, of kings and peasants. Each individual carpet witnesses, conceals and then narrates a story of its own.Through the shades, patterns and textures of rugs, I seek to combine, connect and investigate their different forms of expression and transform them into modes of my personal stories which in a way reflect my states of mind in a certain moment; the states which later become untouchable memories.
Marjan Baniasadi
As an Iranian visual artist living and working in Lahore for the past 9 years, I keenly observe how natural and cultural connections unite and divide people at the same time. These connections, in my opinion, are distinguished by manmade borders. In my paintings, I use elements from nature specially trees and manmade objects like red bricks to rationalise this relationship. I present these objects and nature as two elements that continue to exist parallel to each other as both evolve with one complimenting the other; to me the manmade object is like human ambition which is always trying to tame nature and create boundaries. This is evident in my work as I depict the importance of all that is green around us and the way it grows side by side with manmade objects. The medium and techniques of miniature painting that I use to paint these subjects represent my personal style and changes that take place in the process of creating them. My emphasis remains to be on the process of change and on human desire, which has no limits.
Maryam Binasadi
Artists
