* Labyrinth
Sanam Sayehafkan, November 26 – December 13, 2021
* Installation Views
* Individual Works
* Statement
Labyrinth
Labyrinths are places consisting of intertwined paths with entrances and exits that are difficult to find.
In a Labyrinth, there’s a variety of paths and a simultaneous possibility of being lost and found. The only rule of the labyrinth is coincidence, and you can’t act by an argumentative rule in the labyrinth. You should coincidentally choose between one of two existing paths and hope for the best. Even in coincidences, the totality of it all is ruled by order.
As Borges writes in The Library of Babel: “The Library is unlimited but periodic. If an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder-which, repeated, becomes order.”
Labyrinths are places consisting of intertwined paths with entrances and exits that are difficult to find.
In a Labyrinth, there’s a variety of paths and a simultaneous possibility of being lost and found. The only rule of the labyrinth is coincidence, and you can’t act by an argumentative rule in the labyrinth. You should coincidentally choose between one of two existing paths and hope for the best. Even in coincidences, the totality of it all is ruled by order.
As Borges writes in The Library of Babel: “The Library is unlimited but periodic. If an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder-which, repeated, becomes order.”
Inspired by contemporary world literature, and the work of authors like Haruki Murakami, I have found common aspects of studying labyrinth structures, so I seek to study the structure of special geometry and the ultimate continuity of unpredictable and chaotic events.
The perplexity of my elements start at the eternal feeling of loss and regret, and continue into imagining the regressive passage of time into a revolving and ever- expanding labyrinth, in which we remember the suture and know nothing of the past; so that the viewer is placed in a labyrinth of familiar and unfamiliar elements, suspended between dreams and reality, to seek, trapped in the timelessness, silence, and congelation of collaged spaces, and to realize the futility of this world of my design.
* Press Release
Sanam Sayehafkan (B. 1989, Rasht, Iran) looks to art history and contemporary world literature to create stories with imagined, multi-dimensional, and deceptive narratives in her work. In these timeless painting pieces, she presents narratives of vague stories in seductive spaces to the viewer and traps the viewer within the intertwined narratives and endless exploration.
The storytelling in these paintings have hidden meanings that create various concepts in the viewers’ minds and create further confusion, thus the lack of integrity prevents the viewer from making any predictions. Sayehafkan is inspired by the storytelling structure of contemporary literature and the stream of consciousness mechanism, and also the works of Kawanabe Kyosai, Theodore Gericault, Kerry James Marshall, and David Salle.
Although the viewer of “Labyrinth” has no assurance of the starting point, he embarks on a journey that is much harder to leave than it was to enter.
The artist starts the initial plan for each painting with a collection of mental images and pictures from magazines and the news, and those designs transform and change shape during the execution process.
The storytelling in these paintings have hidden meanings that create various concepts in the viewers’ minds and create further confusion, thus the lack of integrity prevents the viewer from making any predictions. Sayehafkan is inspired by the storytelling structure of contemporary literature and the stream of consciousness mechanism, and also the works of Kawanabe Kyosai, Theodore Gericault, Kerry James Marshall, and David Salle.
Although the viewer of “Labyrinth” has no assurance of the starting point, he embarks on a journey that is much harder to leave than it was to enter.
The artist starts the initial plan for each painting with a collection of mental images and pictures from magazines and the news, and those designs transform and change shape during the execution process.
By putting together these images, she breaks the order and discipline of the elements and creates a new harmony and order among these elements and surfaces .
Although these works do not present a single and integrated subject, the viewer is still confronted with glimpses of the artist’s thought process.
Realism in this collection presents something more than reality, that although created with realism technique constructs unreal situations that put the viewer in an uncanny state between familiar and unfamiliar, that looks increasingly strange the more the viewer engages with it.
The starting and finishing points of each story in the paintings are not clear and continue into the labyrinth of the viewer's mind.
Although these works do not present a single and integrated subject, the viewer is still confronted with glimpses of the artist’s thought process.
Realism in this collection presents something more than reality, that although created with realism technique constructs unreal situations that put the viewer in an uncanny state between familiar and unfamiliar, that looks increasingly strange the more the viewer engages with it.
The starting and finishing points of each story in the paintings are not clear and continue into the labyrinth of the viewer's mind.
* Past Exhibitions
Keiman Mahabadi
November 5-22, 2021
November 5-22, 2021
Group exhibition
August 6 - September 3, 2021
August 6 - September 3, 2021
Shabnam Jahanshahi
July 16 – August 2, 2021
July 16 – August 2, 2021