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Surfaced, Hadieh Shafie’s first solo show in New
York, will be on View at Leila Heller Gallery’s
Chelsea location from February 26 to April 11, 2015.
The exhibition will feature twenty new artworks
and both builds on her much acclaimed past work
and explores new mediums. An illustrated
catalogue with an essay by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
will accompany the exhibition.
Shafie’s colorful and multidimensional works defy
simple categorization. The artist layers thousands
of strips of hand painted paper, which are then
rolled into scrolls and placed within a frame or
stacked flat. Persian words like eshgh ("love") are
inscribed on and often concealed within the layers
of paper. Shafie’s repeated use of words and
phrases references meditative practices that are
central to Sufism.
Shafie’s practice as a whole is also an investigation
of color fields, experimenting with countless forms
of paper and testing their reactions following
different treatments. The palette for her new show
will consist of nine colors: ultramarine blue,
cadmium yellow medium, quinacridone magenta,
c.p. cadmium orange, c.p. cadmium yellow
primerose, light magenta, phthalo green, dioxazine
purple and fluorescent chartreuse , in addition to
black ink and the white of the paper. The artist
plays with illusory optics as the interaction of these
nine colors gives the impression that the works
encompass hundreds of colors saturated within
the scrolls. Using a variety of techniques, some of
the works in Surfaced feature initially straight
strips of paper that increasingly emulate the flow
of water. In others, the stacked strips of paper
seem to be floating throughout the surface and
the scrolls themselves seem to gently sway. These
works are held together by binding the strips of
paper to one another, directly referencing the
art/history of bookbinding and manuscript
making.
As the artist continues to explore the conceptual
aspects of her medium, diptych pieces will
juxtapose flat scrolls with stacked strips of paper
where the text is directly applied to the surface
edges. In this interplay between the hidden and
the revealed, Shafie effectively activates the surface
of her works. If the strips were to be separated
from one another, the words would disappear
altogether. The text in these new diptych works
incorporates verses from two of the most
influential modernist Iranian poets, Forough
Farrokhzad and Sohrab Sepehri.
The new show challenges viewers’ concepts of
sculpture and drawing as the artist successfully
allows images and forms to appear in multiple
dimensions. The edges of flat works directly
reference the image on the surface, while light and
shadow interact on more overtly sculptural stacks
of scrolls and papers to create painterly surface
images.
Born in Iran, Hadieh Shafie currently lives and
works in Silver Spring, MD. She has exhibited at
numerous global institutions such as The Victoria
and Albert Museum, London; Institute du Monde
Arabe, Paris; Casa Arabe, Madrid; the Cantor Arts
Centre, Stanford University; and the San Antonio
Museum of Art in Texas. Her work can also be
found in prestigious public and private collections
including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London;
The British Museum, London; Sheldon Museum of
Art, Nebraska; The Bank of America, Corporation
Collection, North Carolina; The Salsali Private
Museum, Dubai; and The Farjam Collection, Dubai.