Published in 2A Magazine Issue #7- Winter 2008
For me, life is a constant ongoing quest; for who I am; for who WE are; for attainment of more awareness.
This essence is also the fundamental backbone of my Art. As a withdrawn child, drawing and painting opened a door for me at an early age, to express myself and communicate. Later, this form of creative visual expression helped me cope and heal, in the face of adolescence turmoil mixed with an arena of socio political events and challenges I could not comprehend and had to endure as a young immigrant. | After the Iranian revolution in 1979 I moved away from my home country for 12 years, living first in France and then in the US. By the time I came back to Iran at the age of 24, I was a cross cultural byproduct, with all its positives and negatives, like many of my generation, with a BA in graphic design and painting. Yoga and the healing arts had become my other discoveries and fascination. Since college years I felt the pulls of two distinct growing passions tearing me in two opposite directions; inwardly I constantly debated as to become a full time healing arts practitioner or a full time artist.
Now I recognize that my higher purpose and gift is to blend these two facets in one.
I am realizing more and more that the visual arts can be a tool for me to explore and communicate the fundamentals of life, truth and conflicts which I perceive in myself and others, and am deeply concerned with, and would like to share with the world, around me.
Self portraits, expressive figures, and nudes were the bulk of my work for many years. I love the human form and am fascinated by its containment and reflection of the human soul with its full spectrum of thoughts and emotions. I am constantly awed by this mystery which we are as humans, with our full capacity to become gods and demons and create hell and heaven.
A few years after moving back to Iran, I developed a fondness for the elegant Farsi / Arabic form of writing which coincided with a deep fascination with Persian mystical poetry inspired by the plays of my mother at the time, who is a renowned contemporary Iranian play writer and director. She opened a whole new door for me through her magical plays using Persian poetry and mysticism. | All this incorporated itself for me into a new form of Art work which I now call “script painting.” By that I mean using script as a bold uncontrolled form of writing which is anything but calligraphy, in which I have absolutely no training. Often I use the letters as form without specific meaning at all; at other times I use poetry, which for the most part remains illegible, trying to convey its meaning.
The poetry of Rumi has a paramount influence over me, although I also use poems from many other mystical
Iranian poets, as well as words from more contemporary writers which inspire me, Iranian or other.
The technique I use for both my figurative and script painting styles of work is usually mixed media collage. I like using this technique because it has its own surprises allowing for texture and fun. My collages may consist of different kinds of paper, paint, glue, and other material.
Today I am developing both my figurative and script painting styles of work along with a third style which is a blend of the
previous two, as I have blended my own two worlds together.
I have passionate ideas which I wish to materialize as visual and also as interactive conceptual art.
I know how healing Art can be, and how crucial it is to share and awaken to more awareness on our planet today. I believe that each one of us has the capability and the responsibility to bring around a change for the better in our world and it is futile to simply hope for a miracle, as we ourselves have the key to it.
As Rumi says in one of his poems: “Only you must untangle the knot at your feet with your own hands”
I would like to contribute to that possibility for myself and others to the best of my abilities, and I wish my artistic expression to be a reflection of that effort.
Maryam Shirinlou
