Aug 2

Zahra Zavareh

Zahra Zavareh is an installation and video artist who has exhibited in European countries such as Sweden, England, Ireland, and Cyprus as well as the United States. Recent residencies include Moskesel Creative Lab in Sweden and Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Ireland. Notable exhibitions in Stockholm include Detroit Stockholm Gallery and Gallery Duer. Her video art has been featured at film festivals such as Limited Access Four and five festival and Stockholm Fringe Festival. Zahra has also participated at the 5th Tehran Sculpture Biennial in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Both the installations and video art can be described as fluxus in nature as the process becomes emphasized rather than the finished product. Usually depicting animals or figures, the works evoke emotions of isolation, melancholiness, and relationships with environments. There remains a lingering theme of death within the art in either literally depicting images of dead animals and bones or the appearance of ghost-like figures. Death remains an interesting concept to touch upon because the theme fits nicely with her approach to isolated, dark figures and animals in unsettling environments.

Often cryptic and conveying a message, the subjects in the works usually convey a sense of emanation of spirits through depictions of high contrast, ghostly saturation, and visual distortions. The environments for which the subjects interact with range from showers, sewers, architecture, arenas, and furniture. These varying surroundings emulate simulations of mysterious constructs created simply to provoke the viewer’s notion of space and contemporary identity.

Falcon Watching Me Hold Up (pictured above) remains one of Zahra’s most developed works in regards to conceptual relevance. A depiction of a bird of prey stands perched over the motionful images of a woman who appears to be trapped inside a stool. The woman appears angry and appears almost witch-like with her facial features becoming distorted by electrical interference in the video projection. The work references Albert Camus to the concept of intelligence in art being relegated to absurdity based upon the depiction of reality of elements. Zahra wishes for the viewer to interpret the work for what the art remains to be rather than on deep philosophical meaning or metaphor. In such a regard, we can evaluate the work as an exercise in absurdity because of the literal depiction of an angry woman being trapped inside a projection being watched over by a giant fowl.

Zahra Zavareh reinterprets image-making as a means of conveying dark concepts reflecting the deeper purposes of contemporary identity. The viewer could become lost in the meaning of the works as lingering themes of death and despair grips us to reevaluate our surroundings in regards to their meaning and allegory. Zahra Zavareh remains a gifted artist who creates unfamiliar imagery and constructs which push the limits of contemporary confinement.