The Fall
In The Fall, a distant skyline evocative of Iran’s ornate mosques melts at the horizon. An exodus of sad figures spirals away from a jewel-like landscape, that up-close, reveals repression. A Persian idiomatic expression is scrawled within the landscape: From a distance it is beautiful, but up close, it wrenches the soul. The glittery bubble of immigrant nostalgia for homeland is burst.
At the foreground of the painting, an immigrant couple sits proudly on their baggage. They observe citizens of their new country flippantly interacting with objects that remind them of Iran. The new-world citizens treat a Persian carpet like a picnic blanket, sipping full glasses of Shiraz –a red wine named after an Iranian city. They read magazines that headline Iranian terror, and Herodotus –an ancient history that depicts Persia as an enemy and loser. The fallen leaves from the tree framing the landscape are blue and white, like the diasporic figures –hinting at collective loss.
The textures and colors in my work pay tribute to Iran’s ceramic traditions and jewel-like aesthetic. The composition is inspired by Persian miniatures and the symbolic landscapes of Hudson River School paintings. The original painting is in the Collection of Roya and Massoud Heidari.
