ISLAMABAD: Paintings from Iran as well as carpets and rugs are famous in the world for their intricate design, patterns and colours. One can find all of these elements in the latest body of paintings created by Marjan Baniasadi, a promising Iranian artist.

A show titled Colours of Home opened at Dastaangoi Gallery on Saturday depicting the Munich-based visual artist’s memories of her homeland.

“Every person feels differently and every emotion is individually shaped. One of the sentiments that most people have felt at least once in their lives and whose severity everyone can agree on is the feeling of homesickness,” says Nicola Petek, a Berlin-based curator and art adviser about the artist’s work.

“It is usually not the nostalgia for a certain place, rather for a certain memory that makes our hearts heavy. Of the people who once surrounded us, of the lightness we felt at certain times. This melancholy can sometimes be triggered by a particular smell or taste or even by an object that one associates with a past happiness,” Ms Petek said.

In Ms Baniasadi’s case, that object is the Iranian carpet. The painter was born in Brazil, grew up in Tehran and Delhi, and studied in Lahore, Hungary and Germany where she now lives and works. Just as she carries the memory of what it feels to be home with her wherever she goes, she also takes these specific rugs with her in one way or another.

The artist meticulously explores the components of the handmade, woven product, which is not only a formal convention but also, through its narrative quality, a way of looking at the world.

On the canvas, she creates a pattern of life made up of a multitude of cultural rituals, customs and idiosyncrasies, weaving her observations into unique knots, strands, colours, shapes and motifs, which she then carefully reassembles to enable new narratives that she generously shares with us, Ms Petek added.

“For Baniasadi, the confrontation with the Iranian rug has a healing effect. The woollen fabric embraces her both physically and emotionally, allowing her to travel back to another time and place while anchoring her in the here and now,” she added.

The surfaces of her works are tactile, delicate and sensitive. Their visual subtleties and complexities engage the viewer in discovering her work.

Ms Baniasadi graduated with a bachelors degree in fine arts in 2017 from the National College of Arts, Lahore, and has exhibited her works in Germany, Pakistan, Iran and Italy.

Her work depicts her evolution and the aesthetics of the cities she lived in, said Amad Mian, the curator and owner of the gallery. Through her artwork, she creates a sense of familiarity and puts on canvas the memories of her homeland.

Her work has been revolving around the idea of Persian carpets often called the “the mirrors of Iranian art and civilisation” which are deeply ingrained in her memories and tied with her Iranian identity, said Amad.

“The work is really fascinating and very personal. As we see the shift of the artist moving and spending time in different parts of the world – Tehran, Lahore and Munich. In theBlue and Redseries in oil on linen and in acrylic on canvas panel, she has beautifully captured different modes, floral patterns and designs as well as seasons such as Maytime, June II, October in water colour.

“For Marjan, Persian carpets are not only commodities but living objects that are capable of recording time, besides incorporating myths, tales and fantasies of multiple times. These rugs imbibe, delineate and convey narratives, complex and simple that are about life and death, about pain and pleasure, about kings and mortals – through every thread woven together,” he added.

The motifs and floral patterns used in rugs are important and inseparable components of Iranian culture that have evolved while living through different eras. Kerman rugs are prized for a wide range of designs, a broad palette, the use of natural dyes and fibres, great tensile strength and abrasion resistance besides colour combinations.

The show will go on until Aug 30 and can be viewed through an appointment that can be obtained via Daastangoi’s Instagram page.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2022