Houses on fire are the subject of a series of realist paintings by Ali-Akbar Jahangard. “If There Is a Home …” is Jahangard’s solo painting show underway at Sareban Art Gallery in Tehran till September 17, Iranian Visual Art News Agency reported. “Jahangard’s paintings are inspired by his hometown Qasr-Shirin (in Kermanshah). The motif of fire is used symbolically, and to me it seems that the paintings describe the present social conditions,” said painter and instructor Iraj Eskandari, who attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition on September 7.
In 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Qasr-e Shirin was a major war zone. The city was occupied by the invading Iraqi forces and when they were kicked out by the Iranian combatants they made sure that not a single wall stood.
“The first concept the paintings convey is something beyond the war. It is about homeland,” said painter Bijan Akhgar, another attendee. He said the concept is more about “motherland” than its territorial connotations.
“My home atop a hill in Qasr-e Shirin was razed to the ground in 1980. That’s why I can’t perceive home as a tangible place or concept. Whenever the subject of home is discussed, only its missing place comes to my mind,” Jahangard said in a note to the exhibit. “For me, the idea of home is something close to a loss. My identity is somehow defined by this loss,” he wrote. Sareban Art Gallery is located at No. 130, West Hoveyzeh Street, on the corner of Yousefi Street.
