من هنوز می‌توانم نسیم را احساس کنم

Gallery Joeun is pleased to present "I Can Still Feel The Breeze", a solo exhibition by Mojé Assefjah (b. 1970, Tehran), from March 30th to May 6th. Nature seen through the window is depicted like a dreamscape between figuration and abstraction. When the artist, who left her country, Iran, to become a German citizen, returned to Tehran 18 years later, she was confronted with the beauty of the Alborz Mountains. When she was a child living in Tehran, she had felt embraced by the mountains and her perception was broadened by the landscape she had seen through the window. For the artist, the painting is a scene and a view. It is like looking into a nostalgic space. Since the Renaissance, painting has been an open window to the world. Influenced by masters such as Giotto and Piero della Francesca, the artist has deepened her passion for Renaissance art and even explored the technique. She insists on using egg tempera as a technique.

The color achieved with egg tempera is both matte and satin. The thin layers overlap in an organic way, giving the paint a dialectical texture, both transparent and opaque, light and dark, warm and cold. The layered colors and shapes exude a physical texture reminiscent of textiles. The free brushstrokes create their own curves, like the shape of a voluminous ribbon or the drape of fabric. Moje's brushstrokes, influenced by traditional Persian calligraphy, are light and rhythmic like a dance. Art historian Anne-Marie Bonnet compares her work to "the way a ballet dancer's solo makes the viewer forget the discipline and sheer physical effort involved, creating instead a sensation of grace and 'lightness of being.'" However, the lightness is immediate: "As one stares longer, the complexity and possible depth become apparent." She then considers her work "the rhetoric of the fathoming of another existence." The artist, who is being presented in Korea for the first time, has a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and has subsequently had numerous exhibitions throughout Europe and Central Asia. After successive events such as her solo exhibition Art Paris 2021 and her exhibition at the Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich in 2022 and inclusion in its collection, which houses the largest collection of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), she is considered one of the most up-and-coming artists in Europe. From a 2-meter-long work in egg tempera to a drawing reminiscent of calligraphy strokes, 23 of her recent works offer viewers nostalgic and dreamy landscapes.