Acrylic and oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Artist. 2011.
They say that he is the very last one! The Siberian Crane is a traveler from Russia who comes to the coast of the Caspian Sea in Iran to spend the winter each year. His Persian name is “Omid,” which means “hope.” The book I am holding over the crane’s head is the Koran. Traditionally the Koran is held over the head of a person who is leaving the house for a journey, to make sure s/he will return safely. I am using this custom, which is common in Iran today, to ensure the crane will come back next fall. It was the only thing I could do, as a mother, sister, or wife.
Acrylic on canvas, 170 x 180 cm. 2009. Private collection
Some of those who saw my painting wondered why I had wrapped a wild animal in a chador, an important religious symbol. But, you know, it’s not that simple for me. The real title of the painting is “Me, Mom, Aunt.” The little girl laughing at you is me. My aunt, with the cheetah’s head, shelters me under her colorful chador. My mother is standing on the other side, wearing a white chador with small colorful flowers. She is not concerned with me because I’m safe and quite happy with my aunt. The cheetah is now part of my family, my blood relation! It’s like an old family photograph. Everyone poses in traditional chadors, staring at the camera and waiting for the “click.”
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2010, 205 x 146 cm. 2011. Private collection
For me, the Caspian Red Deer is a mysterious animal. I had eaten his meat in my childhood and had seen his antlers in my paternal relatives’ houses, but I had never seen his picture. I didn’t know his name or how he looked like. The dark background of this painting is an image I had in my mind from just outside my grandma’s house in a cold fall; her house being located right in this animal’s habitat! My uncles are hunters and they don’t listen to my bemoaning not to hunt. I had those antlers, so I decided to be the body of the animal himself; to be buried under a tree respectfully with him; to nourish the tree roots with our blood; to find eternal life as the soul of the tree. And perhaps I wanted to say to my uncles: “We are one! Bury us together or stop killing us.”
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 190 x 160 cm. 2011. Ramsar Hotel
“The Turtle and the Geese”. In Iran this story is found in the tales of “Kalila and Dimna”, from the “Panchatantra”, an Indian collection of ancient animal fables. Once upon a time there was a turtle that lived in a pond that was going dry. The turtle asked two geese for help and they agreed to fly him to another pond. They held a stick in their beaks while the turtle was hanging onto it by his mouth. The geese warned the turtle that he must not open his mouth, lest he would fall. While the geese were transporting him in the air across the countryside, a group of children down below burst into laughter at the funny sight. The turtle became angry at their rude remarks and opened his mouth to reply but fell from the sky to his death. If you don’t mind, I would like to change the old story to make my own story. In my new version of the Panchatantra, I play the role of the turtle and the blue sea plays the part of the sky. The turtles help me to fly in the sea and I guide them far away from the roads and artificial lights on the shoreline, a form of light pollution that disorients newborn turtles, sending them inland to their deaths rather than to life in the sea. I don’t want them to remain endangered. I want them to live and flourish.
Acrylic on canvas, 2012, 180 x 75 cm. 2009. Private collection
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 190 x 85 cm. 2011.
My cousin and I are trying to connect to the bats with toy telephones. The bats can barely see us, so the telephone is the only medium by which we have chosen to connect to them. Each bat has a phone receiver. They are shy, so they put their hands over their faces! Fortunately, there is one who is interested in talking. He is talking to my cousin, and I am just watching them. This is a play. There is no fear or odium. So, I guess, except for the darkness, everything is going to be fine.
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 210 x 94 cm. 2011.
An art critic once asked me: Have you paid attention to the symbolic meaning of the animals in your paintings? Did you think of the power of the Caspian tiger or the symbolism of the imperial eagle in your paintings of these animals? Are you interested in wild and powerful animals? Do you believe in their legendary powers? He guessed that my general ideas were taken from the symbolic values of each animal. I told him, “no! I don’t care. I am happy if the symbols match my animals, but to me all animals, even the seemingly week ones, are as real and powerful as any other in the real world.”
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 218 x 160 cm. 2011.
This is the most introspective painting in the series and the only abstract one. I am in the center with many salamanders linked to me by black and red threads. We have many things in common: the patterns on the backs of salamanders, the design of the costume from Lorestan province that I am wearing, the lines of my wavy hair, and my blood veins that connect me to the red pattern of salamander’s back. I’ve tried to gather all of them around me, to connect our blood, our body and our destiny.
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 190 x 117 cm. 2011. Courtesy of Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
In his habitat he was called the “Red Lion.” Actually, he wasn’t a lion, but I must admit that he was red, he was bloody. The last one was killed in 1959, but there was no funeral and no one cried. I don’t know where his tomb is to put flowers on it. I can only wail and mourn his passing in my own way.
Mixed media on canvas, 2012, 180 x 75 cm. 2013.
What do you think would happen if a battle rages? Who would lose? You are probably wrong! Don’t be fooled by the sheep’s innocent looks. They buy the verdict of judges with their innocent look. The sheep are hungry. They don’t eat only plants. They eat lands. I wish I could save even half our land, but they are hungry. Should we give them the land we have owned for more than a million years? I’m standing in front of the rancher to protect my flock of leopards. I am afraid the penetration power of the bullet from the rancher’s gun would be stronger than the sharpness of the leopard’s teeth. But let me stand my ground. Let me be a good “shepherd” myself.
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 190 x 125 cm. 2011.
This painting is the only nightmare in the series. You can predict the end. The net will fall definitely. The old house in the painting is my maternal grandma’s house in an old sector of Tehran. It is located in a narrow alley with a little stream running through it. When I was about 5 years old, I used to sit on the stairs watching that small, dirty stream, waiting for a fish to pass by! I even tied a rope to a branch to fish there. How foolish! How hopeful! The sturgeon lives in the Caspian Sea and is valued mainly for its caviar. The Caspian Sea is actually a closed lake and is getting more polluted every day. The problem began after the Soviet break-up when the new countries around the lake put aside any restraint in fishing sturgeon. I have brought the Caspian Sea to my grandma’s alley to be with the sturgeon there. And, as in a nightmare, the fisherman comes out of the windows above to fish us. I hug the sturgeon to be with her, to be part of the same destiny. Under the net…it is a ruined dream.
Acrylic on canvas, 2009, 220 x 140 cm. 2009. Private Collection
My playmate and myself as a child crouch by the edge of a pool, the edge of old and new time. Each one is looking down into its future. When I painted this work, I didn’t know that type of animal. I painted the young animal using a picture of a cheetah cub. I searched for pictures of the adult and found nothing. Then I found the animal skin in my friend’s home. He told me it was a cheetah’s skin. Later I learned that it was a wolf’s skin painted to look like cheetah! At first I thought I would have to change the skin in my painting if I wanted to have it in this series. But now I realize that the wolf’s skin was painted that way because the cheetahs are almost extinct and their skins are very hard to find.
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2010, 205 x 142 cm. Private Collection
There are two versions of the painting for this animal because I could not choose one of them. I had certain ideas for both of them at the same time, and I started to paint both of them at the same time. The location for this one is a dense forest near my father’s village, again the habitat of the Red Deer. In most pictures of this animal that I found, the animal had already been shot. First, I placed me and the deer us on the ground, but it was something that looked too ordinary and I felt it would not impress anyone. Then I thought that we had died before so we could be in the air, having the Adoration prayer pose, suspended as floating souls over the forest forever.