hadieh shafie presents paper sculptures for leila heller gallery at art dubai
sohrab 5, 2014
ink, acrylic, and paper with printed and handwritten farsi text from the poem ‘dar golestaneh’ (‘in the garden’)
12.5 x 18.75 in / 31.7 x 47.6 cm
image courtesy of leila heller gallery

 

 

 

for the 9th edition of art dubai — the leading international art fair in the middle east and south asia — new york-based leila heller gallery presents the intricate paper works of iranian creative hadieh shafie. by marrying traditional persian manuscript culture with the modernist color field, shafie creates distinct visual poetics that speak to various social and political circumstances. her low-relief paper sculptures are reminiscent of ancient middle eastern art, with hidden hand-written and printed farsi text painted within the folds of elaborate paper spirals.

 

at first glance, the works seem to be a burst of color, but from an angle, viewers can realize impossibly refined words inscribed onto tightly-packed scrolls, so adeptly applied that they become barely legible. for art dubai, shafie has created several new works including ‘block’ and new diptych pieces, which juxtapose flat scrolls with stacked paper. in these two pieces, text is directly applied to the surface edges, deriving their form from an interplay between what is hidden and revealed.

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detail of rolled paper for ‘sohrab 5’
image © designboom

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detail of ‘sohrab 5’
image © designboom

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forugh 7, 2014
ink, acrylic, and paper with printed and handwritten farsi text from the poem ‘tavalodi digar’ (‘another birth’)
12.5 x 18.75 in / 31.7 x 47.6 cm
image courtesy of leila heller gallery

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detail of ‘forugh 7’
image © designboom

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fragments II, 2014
ink, acrylic and paper with printed and handwritten farsi text ‘eshgh’ (‘love/passion’)
12.5×18.75×3.5 inches/ 31.7×47.6×8.8cm
image © hadieh shafie

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detail of ‘fragments II’
image © hadieh shafie

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stripe, 2014
ink, acrylic and paper with printed and handwritten farsi text ‘eshgh’ (‘love/passion’)
12.25 x 96 in / 31.1 x 243.8 cm
image courtesy of leila heller gallery

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detail of ‘stripe’
image © designboom

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detail of ‘stripe’
image © designboom

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detail of ‘stripe’
image © designboom