Woven Narratives of Time

Collateral Event of Lahore biennale 2020

Woven Narratives of time

For me to be an artist who resides in various locations, simultaneously, the Persian carpets are not only commodities but living objects that are capable of recording time, besides incorporating myths, tales and fantasies of multiple times. These rugs imbibe, delineate and convey narratives, complex and simple that are about life and death, about pain and pleasure, about kings and mortals – through every thread woven together.

In its essence, the imagery of carpet is derived from nature. Its motifs are an attempt of humans to connect with and respond to God’s Creation. In my works, both paintings and ceramics, I intend to explore possible passages that can trace the origin of carpet imagery back to nature. Thus try to establish an equilibrium between Creation and creation. Between nature and art.

“Woven Narratives of Time” comprises porcelain and canvas, and I treat the two as painting surfaces. Visually they are complementing each other but have separate process of making. The new body of work offers paradoxes of different kinds. Porcelain is fragile and unpredictable from the beginning, yet is a substitute of carpet that imbibes and preserves tradition.

In my work, I seek to combine, connect and investigate different forms of expression derived from history and convention and convert them into modes of personal and private stories, which are fragile like porcelain and firm like carpet, but which are about what we are in the garden of fragmented and fractured flowers.

Marjan Baniasadi