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  • Reza Nosrati | NA PAPOULAEY
    November 15 – December 13, 2024

    I am my hand and waiting for my fingers…
    I am a frozen wasteland and a blazing hailstorm…

    These lines from the poems of Shirko Bekas (with slight modifications and abbreviations) can bring us closer to understanding the title of this collection. 
    Pêpûlê—Pêpulê—in Kurdish means butterfly, and if we translate «napêpûlê» literally into Persian, it becomes something like «lack of
    butterfly.»

    If we look at Nosrati’s works and his approach to painting in recent years, the most prominent feature is probably their symbolic and emblematic nature. Whether in works inspired by nature such as mountains, trees, flowers, peacocks, and so on. Whether in his previous collection, the turmoil and chaos of bird-filled skies. 

    If this symbolism in his previous works was accompanied by references to elements of nature, in this period we witness a kind of poetic introspection. Just as the subjects of his previous works were familiar elements for everyone and created a unique image from these millennia-old subjects, in this collection he has also created a unique image from one of our common and deeply rooted cultural and literary clichés.

    Probably the first duality that emerged in the history of human thought is the struggle between light and darkness. Due to its abstract and timeless nature, it has always been a concern for many artists, and this introspective reference, combined with a sense of fragility and grandeur, is also present in the later works of this painter. 

    We live in an era of diverse realities, and it is not far-fetched to ask whether, in this time, a concept like «faith» and love—for anything—that in our Eastern lexicon is symbolized most iconically by a butterfly, and that form of «being,» which is completed by annihilation, can still exist and hold meaning?! And does this «napepule», which is more than just a title indicating an inner state, deny it or affirm it?!