Sahar Alizadeh
Sahar Alizadeh is a contemporary painter who has exhibited internationally in Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Her recent exhibitions include solo shows in Tehran at Jaleh Gallery and Sakoo Art school as well as group exhibitions at Artly Mix in Brazil, Holy Art Gallery in London and Greece, Ashton Gallery in San Diego, and Scilla Jazz International Art Festival in Italy. Sahar has been published by New Visionary Magazine, Italia In Arte Magazine, FilmFame Magazine, London Art Biennale Catalogue, and critically written by Juliet Art Magazine and Tandis Visual Art.
Although most of Sahar’s works appear like ink drawings, they are in fact acrylic paintings or acrylic mixed with pastel. Drenched in darkness and shadow, the paintings typically portray distorted four legged creatures similar to cats and dogs as well as warped interiors. Containing both organic elements such as smears and sfumato forms with geometric attributes such as linearity and strategic platforms, all of Sahar’s works are unpredictable and dissimilar.
Like an apparition or phenomena, the paintings depict forms melting into each other and heavily lop-sided compositions with environments and figurative subjects seemingly blending into each other. The paint bleeds across the surface and scratches in small marks much like an ink drawing while the forms convey high contrast and a robust existence. Usually muddy and mostly devoid of bright colors, the works convey a dark, nightmarish realm and dimension of the mind which seems to imply trauma, depression, or melancholiness. Bold and nuanced, Sahar explores how sporadic forms can improvisationally convey varied human impulses and emotions.
Untitled (pictured above) remains possibly the only piece in Sahar’s portfolio which contains any bright colors. The bright orange penetrates the surface as if to represent light in an interior. With geometric tile-like patterns on the bottom of the composition as well as an overall rectangular ambience, we are led to believe the painting represents an interior. Inside the room we view dismembered body parts as if representing a distortion of a mutation. A macabre painting which channels the darkest parts of the mind.
Sahar Alizadeh conveys conceptual shadows which penetrate and smother our individual psyche. Like consuming smoke or ghostly apparatus, these figurative and interior works provoke our sensory experiences and challenge us to embark on memories and fleeting moments of time. Nuanced and gravely morbid, these dark paintings communicate ambiguity as well as a desire to provoke visual senses towards unfamiliar form and substance. Sahar Alizadeh displays a great deal of fortitude and strength as a painter willing to challenge boundaries of creating arousing non-commercial works.
