A painting exhibition by Iranian artist Sahar Eftekharzadeh is on view at the Sa Art Gallery in Tehran.
Titled ‘In the Present Perfect Continuous’, the artist plays with forms in the framework of the present perfect continuous tense, defined in most dictionaries as ‘actions that started in the past and continue in the present’.
“The artist has entered the complex world of tenses. She has tied the human being to the concept of eternity and has discarded him when he is exhausted in his search,” ISNA reports.
Human figures are shown “depressed” in a surreal dark atmosphere. Low contrast and grey hues are prominent in the paintings. “There is no other color that can show better the pitiful human plight,” Eftekharzadeh said.
Endless vertiginous motions reminds one of the early works by American visual artist David Lynch, in which all the components are in a horizontal or vertical cyclic actions, “each being affected by the preceding and affecting the following figure.”
The horizontal chain of repetitive actions mostly takes place in the lower half of the canvas, with no variety in forms. In addition, traces of several ancient art personalities are recognizable among the depicted faces, such as “the symbolic smile of Chinese contemporary artist Yue Minjun, and Lucas Cranach the Elder, German Renaissance painter.”
Routines and cycles are not new concepts to visual arts, and Eftekharzadeh has taken pains to find her unique theme in the field.
The exhibition will run until January 31 at the gallery located at No. 134, 8th Boustan St., Pasdaran Ave., Tehran.
