Excerpt of: The Collaboration of Color and Form
A Look at the Works of Saloumeh Golnaraghi
by Mehdi Khanakeh
In an overall look at the effects of European modernity on Iranian art we come across three specific divisions in the works of contemporary Iranian artists.
The first group is one that still holds on to traditional forms and structures and believes in the creation of art based on our traditional forms. Another group is one of new painters who have in fact turned away from our traditional art and prefer to work in a new environment that is completely different from that of the past. And yet there is a third group. This group strives to blend the new with our traditional art and to thereby draw the Iranian audience to itself. It invites the viewer to take a new perspective on art and to lead him to a certain maturity in his taste and outlook.
In many of the contemporary movements in Iranian art we see examples of the two latter interpretations more than that of the former interpretation.
Although many of our artists are not as yet familiar with the forms of western painters and are therefore unable to identify with them we still find many artists attempting to imitate those very forms. Any yet imitation is not a new approach to art and we can see many such attempts even in western art itself. Picasso takes this view so far as to say that copying another is acceptable whereas the artist is not to copy himself.
In terms of Iranian art, the problem that we face today is that some Iranian artists have taken this imitation to such extremes that they have lost their own identity: both personal and collective. Hence, the viewer is left with works with which he is unable to relate in any way.
With an eye on the problems created by certain modern painters we look at the works of Saloumeh Golnaraghi. In the works of this painter we come across a new experience through her rare use of color and form. She uses colors that are different from the ones we’re most accustomed to seeing. Her almost snail like curves and circles bring about a distinct movement in her works, an almost implacable movement reminiscent of the movements in traditional Iranian art and yet her childlike colors lead us to the boundless realm of color centered paintings.
In some of the works her colors are distinct reminders of the works of such masters as Cezanne and yet the crucial point is the lack of limitations on her forms and subject matter. Not a single one of her forms knows a distinct boundary but tends to quiver and blend in and out of other forms. This interweaving of color and form are indeed praiseworthy. Here we witness the dominating tendency of color and the selfish nature of form. However, color comes to the aid of form as these very rich colors rise to soften the limiting tendencies of form.