ART-PRESENTATION: Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
The work of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian reflects a life lived between two cultures. She has spent the last half-century articulating her singular vision through mirrored mosaics, reverse glass painting and works on paper combines the rich patterns and geometry found in the folk art heritage of her native Iran with the Abstract art of the New York City Avant-Garde.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: SCAD Museum of Art Archive
“Lineages”, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s solo exhibition features a selection of mirrored sculptural mosaics and geometric drawings. The exhibition is composed primarily ofwork created since 2011, but also includes a series of small drawings from 1977 that informs these more recent works and illuminates the artist’s longstanding concerns of line, color and composition. Farmanfarmaian works in series she calls “Families”, a term that indicates formal and conceptual connections linking works. She establishes initial aesthetic parameters for the series relating to composition, then applies these guidelines to shapes ranging from triangles to decagons. Despite these self-imposed rules, Farmanfarmaian states, “These geometric forms are miracles…One can create so much art based on them; they generate thousands of ideas. They offer infinite possibilities”. To this end, she intuitively selects surface patterning and color to enhance her initial framework. The artist has often spoken about the importance of the hexagon to her work. Regular hexagons have equally sized angles and sides. This allows them to easily tessellate, or fit together in ways that cover a flat surface with no gaps or overlaps. In addition, regular hexagons divide into a variety of equal-sized geometric shapes, such as trapezoids, rhombuses and triangles. The geometric lines and shapes Farmanfarmaian uses are defined by firm rules. For example, in “Untitled (D39)” (2015), circles and arcs are made by drawing a curve that is always equidistant from a center. A regular right triangle must have one right angle and two sides of equal length. Farmanfarmaian often establishes initial aesthetic parameters for her compositions, then follows or makes exceptions for these self-chosen guidelines while composing her work. “Untitled (D39)” is composed within the boundaries of a grid of squares. This work is anchored to the structure of the grid, its shapes and lines converging at intersections. She adds a measure of liveliness to its elegant precision by finding inventive ways to play within the rigidness of the grid and overstep its bounds. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1924, where she studied Fine Arts at the Tehran University. She was one of the first Iranian students to travel to the USA after WW II where she completed her studies at Cornell University and Parsons School of Design. After formative years in New York from 1945 to 1957, during which she met artists Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and later Andy Warhol among others, Monir returned to Iran. There, she further developed her artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship, indigenous art forms such as Turkoman jewelry and clothing, coffee house paintings and the technique of reverse-glass painting, resulting in a period of artistic discovery that culminated in commissions in Iran and exhibitions in Europe and USA The Islamic Revolution in 1979 marked the beginning of Monir’s 26-year exile in New York, during which she focused on drawing, collage, commissions, and carpet & textile design. In 2004, when she finally returned to Iran, she reestablished her studio there and resumed working with some of the same craftsmen she had collaborated with in the 1970
Info: Curators: Amanda York and Storm Janse van Rensburg, SCAD Museum of Art, 601 Turner Blvd., Savannah, Georgia, Duration: 31/1-6/8/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sat 10:00-17:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, Sun 12:00-17:00, www.scadmoa.org
