Back to top
  • 30 Pourmousa St., Somayeh St., Villa St.,
    Tehran - Iran

    +98 21 8880 9808
    MAP
  • Closer
    Atena Fereydouni, Hanie Farhadinik
    Feb 5 – Mar 1, 2021.


    Nature has been an issue of longstanding high eminence during the world’s art history. All repetitions notwithstanding, it never gets rusty by the patina of repetitiveness. Traces of appetite and desire for this could be chased back in the emotional ties between human and nature, as if we are talking about a love relationship deeply woven in one another, full of hurdles, sometimes of wrath and dismay, others of compromise or destruction. 
    If anything, it is mother nature prompting humans to have an instinctive comeback to themselves. Opening a gate ahead, leaving him obsessed by more opening and finding.
    The secret to this charisma lies within the infinite honesty. As Matisse was fond of saying: “An artist is who sees things as if he is looking for the first time, just like a newborn baby.”

    Installation view:

    Press Release:
    Drawing is the prevailing spirit in this show. Atena Fereydooni and Hanieh Farhadi Nik both have a great grasp of drawing in its academic sense, while representing a contemporary approach through their ideas, no intermediary in creating and manner of presenting their works. Even in their paintings, they rule a fluid, humble behavior. Semantically, the common point between these two artists is the subjectivity of nature.
    Nature, its mere sense notwithstanding, but in a sense where human is faced with it, the emotional transition between human and nature, the love but destructive relation he has with nature.
    Through rapid drawings from untouched sceneries using pencil and colored pencils, Atena Fereydooni has provided herself with an apt studying ground for creating her late oil paintings. Among her drawings, she digs for the quiet and grandeur of nature, and among her acrylic and oil paintings, makes an indication of the presence and the from-time-to-time destructiveness of human.
    Haniye Farhadi Nik, except for a handful of her artworks with coal on paper, has done most of her paintings using oil on paper. Mastering a sketch-like bravery, she places oil on paper. Most of her pieces of art come in small frames. Respectively, her view upon nature is shaped from a close distance, directing our attention to the overlooked. In three of her paintings, human is seen not against, but side by side with nature, lacking any sort of superiority once left among its surroundings.
    Moreover, in this exhibition entitled Closer two joint installations from these two artists are shown. One consists of a big drawing of trees on a paper roll, with a mass of coal on the foot of the drawing, indicating directly and clearly man’s destructive power.
    The other one is a whole of drawings and volumes stemming from the long-term visual studies of these artists on the subject of the exhibition. Generally speaking, the main narrative of Closer focuses on human facing nature.
    Juxtaposition of two mindsets, creation upon the same subject, revealing the concerns of both artists have led to an exhibition full of discoverable attractions to the visitor.