February 25-March 10, 2018
Curatorial Statement
Sepideh Salehi’s practice utilizes painting, photography, drawing and animation to explore ideas of displacement, memory and violence revolving around the poetics of ‘the veil’. Through Salehi’s use and abstraction of Iranian iconography and language she challenges and ruminates on her experience as a women and immigrant from Iran. She states, “I have used the traditional Muslim prayer stone as a starting point. I borrow the etched images on the prayer stones to create patterns through rubbing and printing. The repeated images of the stones create a rhythm leading me in the end, to imagery revealing layers upon layers. They form a pattern, or echo words that become evident through this deliberate meditative work process.” Her use of negative space and repetition create delicately intense patterns and compositions that veil and unveil the origin of subject, at times giving protection and obscurity but simultaneously exposing and unearthing the vulnerability in memories. Salehi’s body of work and specifically her use of ‘the veil’ is a protest that is currently shared with women worldwide but especially in a time when women in Iran are contesting the compulsory hijab rule imposed upon them,” says ADVOCARTSY director Roshi Rahnama.
Selected Works
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