Tahereh Vahedian

Born in 1959, Iran
Painter, Sculptor and Installation Artist (since 1985)
Art Lecturer, Ferdows Institute of Higher Education
Founding Member of the Visual Arts Association of Khorasan Province
Founder and Head of Vahedian’s Centre for Visual Arts
Lecturer in Art Theory and Painting at Imamreza Centre for Arts and Culture, Mashhad, Iran

I am an Iranian painter, sculptor and installation artist. I started my career in 1982. In the early years of my career, for the most part I portrayed visible or tangible forms such as nature, still life, animals and human figures. Over years, however, I’ve grown more fascinated with creating abstract images. I’ve also used different techniques and art styles – realistic, impressionistic, surrealistic or expressionistic – to visually articulate what I perceive as human, particularly a woman.

Women are a recurring theme in my paintings. Growing in a country like Iran, I’ve realized that women face many restrictions in terms of expressing themselves. As a result, in my works I create powerful feminine figures who, despite the suppressing situation, try to push the limits and break free. To achieve this, I draw multiple frames within each single canvas to capture several representations of a feminine figure and her internal or external world or to show her continuous, simultaneous existence at different times and places within my canvas space. I believe this shift in my style is mainly due to the fast changing technology and the digital world that makes it possible for us to be present, though virtually, at different points in time and space. This representation also brings together modern art and the old Persian miniature in which human figures, usually in large numbers, are illustrated within the characteristic architectural details and on different levels up in the space.

I mainly use ecoline and acrylic to create as wide a variety of texture and at the same time enhance the ‘accidental’ and ‘impulsive’ with an overriding abstraction. These textures accommodate my figures and also help the simultaneity of their presence in a single canvas. My artworks are the result of this interplay between figures, the texture and the concept, with one of them playing as the dominant theme in each work.