In the “Poïétique” collection, Elham Etemadi drags out images from the archives of her mind, and fuses them together with dreams and games, and puts them in the frames of her paintings. The concept of playing is very important in all of Etemadi’s works, and she playfully but consciously keeps some initial layers of the work intact, layers that reveal to us the connection between the initial ideas and forms and the final.
Not hiding these initial layers gives these pieces a sense of unfinishedness and reveals parts of the process of painting to the viewer. She constructs her compositions with geometrical shapes, sketch lines, and human and animal figures, and creates a space for us to get lost and explore in her paintings.
She portrays familiar forms using the energy from space around her and expressive states, forms that are reminders of memories and familiar feelings for the viewer and tend to create strong emotional content. Her figure paintings are full of energy and the undetermined limit of the elements makes them even more dynamic. The bright, sharp, and lively colors encourage the viewer to explore and discover in the piece, and the eyes to move around in the painting.
This sense of liberation in the compositions shows disarray in order, and the entire process of creation from the artist’s mind to the final moment in the painting can be witnessed.
The exaggerated shapes and colors and oscillating forms represent the anxieties of our lives today and the use of contradicting and multi-dimensional elements helps us find a different understanding of them.