In Hayedeh Ayyazi’s most recent series of work, “New Year’s Owl”, she explores sweet and bitter events using a poetic and satirical yet simultaneously critical tone. While referring to many present-day events, she is adamant on showing us the same instances of savagery in our past. She resists to believe that in this day and age, after so much effort by environmentalists and animal rights activists, as well as treaties and international agreements, human beings are still persistent in practicing their forces of destruction. It is unbelievable that animals are hunted for their skin. How can one cut down a tree and not feel ashamed? The artist observes and draws this scene in all of its details. She breathes unique qualities into every part. She adheres to a certain equality in her painting. While keeping her poetic and autonomous attitude, she remains vested in the realities around her. The entirety of the depicted scene, whether it be sweet or bitter, pleasant or painful, belongs to its every component as well. She goes beyond the approach of a photojournalist to summon the event into her painting and portrays the role of each component. She records the reality of each part. In a journalistic photograph, we look at the date and the day of the event, focusing on the victims and the guilty, and then we look at our digital clocks to check whether we have received any new messages or not. Ayyazi transforms this experience. The events she shows us have been covered in paint and do not ever end. The more we look, the more details we find. Each time we look, we think about how we had not noticed a part of the painting in our previous viewings. Instead of remembering the name of the innocent, we remember the name of the innocent class. We neither care about the one who cuts down nor the thing that is being cut down. The work drives us into remembering ourselves. How we have forgotten our own impact. How we are capable of this deafening silence. In Ayyazi’s horizons, we simultaneously see ourselves as guilty and innocent and advocate, but still, we do nothing.
Mixed media on Paper
43.5 x 35 cm
Mixed media on Paper
70 x 50 cm
Although I am not a prophet
And my miracle is not silent eyes
Without water, without annunciation,
Yet my dreams are of a north pole where bears are sheltered and greet the sun every dawn.
A poem by Iman Mokhtar (artist’s son)
Haydeh Ayazi
Happy horizon
2020
Mixed media on Paper
70 x 50 cm
Soldiers who have no identity rather than being merely soldiers, carry a furious, feeble man to the left corner of the painting, on a surface covered by written words. Another man has fainted out and several hats dispersed on the ground. Beneath the written part, there are two flowers on the left and right side of the painting, the roots or stems of which are bound together delicately to make a closed frame. The corner flowers, in contrast to the other graphically represented ones, depicted this time as natural. Another soldier on the right side of the painting shakes his hand toward us or the audience outside the frame of the painting’s story. Something like security rules and there shouldn’t be any worries.Probably the lower part of the painting is a sidewalk on which the pedestrians are strolling and staring to the bishop standing beyond fence, behind the soldier. A smile of satisfaction can be seen on his lips because of the crowd.Colored gigs are installed on the fence. On a similar level to the bishop, an old woman is walking and looking at the area behind the bishop and over the river.Beyond the river, there is a forest-like landscape. Across the river, on the opposite side, two tanks or war vehicles can be recognized. A soldier is running after a person who is fleeing, as if playing a role in a musical piece.
Acrylic on canvas
80 x 66.9 cm
Acrylic on paper
32 x 24.5 cm
Acrylic on canvas
88 x 58 cm
Acrylic on canvas
64.5 x 88.5 cm
The trunks of cut-down trees still rooted in the soil stretch onto the painting’s horizon, and even further. A candle is lit on each one, in lamentation. They were not put there by environmental activists but rather by monkeys. On the top left side of the painting, a dark gorilla stands on two trunks, striking his chest with his hands. The monkeys, once residents of somewhere between the earth and the sky, are now mournful and dispirited, sitting by the tree trunks in confusion and disbelief, facing the extent of evil. A monkey has risen to the top of an excavator to watch the final moments from the horizon he frequented. A pool of glyphs lies in the middle of the painting, waiting to be turned into a marsh; one as powerful as a black hole.
Mixed media on Paper
70 x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas
58 x 87.5
Mixed media on Paper
70 x 50 cm
The king, along with his earthly wife, prepares for Persian New Year. Thousands of stars and millions of planets are behind them, all ruled by the king. The extraterrestrial king has observed past events. It is not clear if he has traveled to the present from the past or from the future. Whatever be the truth, he does indeed know destiny, and so like a king he enjoys his work of being the king. Change is not imminent.
Acrylic on canvas
71 x 94 cm
Haydeh Ayazi (b. 1961, Tehran) is an Iranian artist based in Tehran, Iran. Taking influence from traditional schools and movements of Persian Painting, including Ghahvekhané (coffeehouse) style, narrative painting and Naqqali traditions, Persian Miniature, Nastaliq and Persian Calligraphy traditions, and the more recent modern-era Saqakhaneh School, she creates paintings that present the viewer with a multitude of ideas, stories, and dimensions. In her work, historical and mythological human characters and animals visit contemporary and past events, creating dialogs between life, nature, the impact of humankind on the environment, and the different perspectives implied by the painting, the viewer, and the painter. Haydeh Ayazi is represented by Delgosha Gallery, where her work has been presented in three solo exhibitions as well as several group shows since 2017.