A wonderful birthday gift

Yesterday a large letter arrived for me from Iran. Imagine my delight when I found that it contained a drawing by my dear friend Elahe Heidari. Elahe had posted it as a birthday gift but the Iranian post and the Royal Mail conspired to ensure that delivery took three weeks. But no matter, it will be framed and will grace my wall along with the other five of Elahe's works that I own.

And some art by two superb young Iranian artists

My friend Elahe Heidari's haunting portrait of an Afghan refugee girl


A stunning work by Negareh Ayatollahi.

I had the privilege of meeting both artists last year Ot was my also my pleasure to meet Azadeh Tahaei an extremely talented photographer and poet. I only wish I had a tiny fraction of their atristic skills

Photo Hunt - Painted

The theme for this week's Photo Hunt is paint or painted. This struck me as an excellent opportunity to put up some works by my friend Elahe Heidari. Elahe is an Iranian artist who is well regarded in her home country and who is beginning to gain international exposure. More of her work can be seen at elaheheidari.com

Examples of Elahe's work at an exhibition of Iranian artists in London

Promotional flyer from a solo exhibition in Iran

Early work given to me by the artist

Also stretching the point a little here are a couple of Elahe's drawings that I own:

Elahe Heidari online exhibition

A selection of my friend Elahe's works are currently being exhibited at a Swiss website Promotion4Art

The exhibition, which also includes works by fellow Iranian s Golnar Afraz, is open online at the following times (GMT?):

MONDAY-FRIDAY: 14.00 – 22.00

SATURDAY: 14.00 – 19.00

SUNDAY: 11.00 – 17.00

Some of her work on the site can also be accessed here

Promotion4Art have a large number of works from Iranian and Vietnamese artists. Some of them are well worth checking out.

Enjoy!

Elahe Heidari's UK debut an utter disappointment

Regular readers will know that I have a great love for the work of Elahe Heidari an extremely talented artist who lives and works in Tehran. Elahe is already well regarded in Iran her works have been exhibited in India, Portugal and (shortly) Germany. I was delighted, therefore, to hear that several of her works were to be included in an exhibition of young Iranian artists called Heaven on Earth Now at the Brick Lane Gallery , London from 23 October to 2 November.

This being the first time her works were exhibited in London I had hoped to attend a well-organised event. Sadly I was mistaken. Only two of her works were actually on the walls and these were very poorly placed. Putting two large paintings together at a corner (as you can see from the above photograph) hardly does them justice. It was not just Elahe's work - other paintings were not well placed either. To be honest I've seen pictures hung better on the walls of a kindergarten.

Worse, at least two of her other works (I didn't turn over all of the other paintings) were simply leant against the wall, one on top of another. It hardly made a good impression and I can't imagine it did the paintings much good either.

The accompanying catalogue describes Elahe's works thus:

Elaheh Heydari tells the story of her women starting with the special texture of her paint on canvas, a texture which.... resembles a plaster that was not supposed to be painted upon. What you see are mementos that children or at times adults write on walls and quickly run off not to get caught...

Hmm as if she daubed "Tracey Slag does blow jobs for cigarettes on a wall then ran off? I don't think so!

The simplicity of the lines and the forms as well as the compositions reflect the painter and her character's fear and anxiety of getting caught - having their secrets exposed -and capture the fear and vulnerability resulting from that fear...

I won't go on but suffice it to say that I concur with the not-wife when she said "Eh? Haha! Who wrote this bollocks?"


I did not think the organiser was justified either when he made what I considered a disparaging remark about Minoo Emami's work - He considered her work to be in a rut and that nobody would want to buy it. I disagree entirely of course.


For me Elahe's London debut was very disappointing - The organiser did not seem to have much idea about hanging the exhibits to ensure that they were at least adequately presented. This may have been exacerbated by the size of the Brick Lane gallery itself which was clearly too small for the exhibition. That is not a slur on the gallery itself; it is a fine gallery.


The organiser's motive was clearly to make money from this exhibition. That is not a criticsm of course. However I wonder if some buyers were put off by what what seemed to be a shoddy display. I hope that the second appearance of her work here in the UK will be better organised.

Elahe Heidari paintings at the Brick Lane Gallery, London

A selection of Elahe's work will be on view at the Brick Lane Gallery, London, from tomorrow until 3 November. This is the first time any of her work has been exhibited in the UK (apart from on the walls of the homes of we lucky few who own examples of her work!).

Elahe Heidari's new website

Readers of this blog know that I love Elahe Heidari's work. I was introduced to her
in 2004 by a dear mutual friend Redwine and I am now the proud owner of several of her works. I was delighted finally to meet her and several other charming, hospitable and extremely talented Iranian artists in Paris last month



I'm delighted to see that Elahe now has her own website . Please visit and enjoy the work of a gifted artist.

A New Elahe Heidari Drawing

A drawing given to me by Elahe Heidari during my recent visit to Paris.

New Elahe Heidari Exhibition

Click here for the Mah Art Gallery website

Hopefully it won't be too long before she will be exhibited here in the UK. Elahe now has her own blog which will be used to showcase her work.

Elahe Heidari - Afghan girl

Regular readers of this blog know that I have posted several times about of Elahe Heidari's work ( here and here are two such posts).

This is one of Elahe's recent works, another very powerful image. The subject is an Afghan refugee girl living in Tehran - one of around 900,000 afghan refugees in Iran. It was painted for a UNHCR event in Tehran last month to raise money for the Society for Protection of Children's Rights

Elahe Heidari - new drawing (a wordy Wordless Wednesday)

I was delighted to receive just recently a gift of this drawing from from Elahe Heidari, an artist and dear friend who lives in Tehran.

Ever since I first saw her work a few years ago I have been taken by its sheer power of her work, particularly her portrayal of women. It is heartening that most who see examples of her work are deeply impressed and more than a few feel as strongly about it as I do.

More examples of her work can be found at Kargah, a major Iranian art website (click on her name above and at Gallery Etemad.

This is a painting she gave me two years ago. It takes pride of place on my wall. I know this is rather a wordy entry for what should is a wordless meme but what the hey - call it a wordless Wednesday with commentary!