After India - Exhibitions

Tehran, No. 12 | Naeimi Alley | North Mirza Shirazi St | Motahari Ave.

11 February - 9 March 2022

India was like a dream to me because I was looking for myself and still I am.
It all started with a journey ... Ahmad Nasrollahi's first trip to India in 2017... He was ready to face this amazing land. Backed by years of study in Eastern art and history and years of using mythological symbols in painting, with signs and symbols crossing the border of nationality to fit into a global language, and recognizing and embracing the path that has taken over half a century of professional work that he had left behind. "An artist is an artist wherever he goes, he is a traveler who is looking at the world through the eyes of an artist."
Everything is an opportunity, a chance for the full gushes of images and ideas that multiply by such trips.
Restless and impatient, at dawn he had separated from the co-travelers and set foot into the darkness of the forest. On the way back home from the Auroville forest, in the darkness, silence and stillness, for the first time he saw the Palmyra tree leaves spread out on the ground: "I saw a romantic, epic and mythical outlook in these leaves. Time is talking to me in the heart of leaf, me who hears the sound of silence ... I immediately started working in the backyard."
The self-conscious and the unconscious of the artist are lost in the layers of time, a dream that continues in the artist's awakening to appear in a deep gush, in a moment's outburst as unique drawings. Palmyra leaves reborn and became the starting point of a series of works that continued in the form of masks and then with the expansion, extension and polishing of images on larger canvases.
The artworks of this exhibition are partly outcomes of this journey, a product of three years of work and a selection of many works created in various dimensions. The serpent, lotus and dance of Shiva, the mandalas, the sacred colors of India... and the imaginary layers that pass through the miniatures and art of ancient Iran, through the pillars of sacred places, through the Qajar art and calligraphy and inscriptions ... to reach the lost voice of the artist, a deep voice in the human story behind history and passing from the heart of it. Crossing definitions and boundaries in a flowing space and reaching the depth of the Iranian mentality.
The impact of India's journey on Nasrollahi's work continues to this day and has been reflected in a more abstract way in the artist's later works. The gush of impatience and restlessness until it comes to what must happen, is still gushing.
Lida Nasrollahi Bahman 1398