Between the Lines

By Yasmin Moshari

Aliakbar Sadeghi's sketches unfold like an elaborate palimpsest-layered, contradictory, and endlessly shifting. His works reveal drawings that toy with numerous ideas and styles. Sadeghi's rediscovery of his illustration of Rostam's Seven Trials, years after originally painting them, ignited his enchantment with the Div.
At the start of the exhibition, the Adam and Eve artwork depicts the couple entangled with the omnipresent Div at the genesis of creation. However, throughout the shaw, the Div morphs from an intimidating warden to a romantic, a caring yet devilish looking parent, and so on. These paradoxical portrayals question fixed perceptions of mythical figures and emphasize their capacity for reinvention and recontextualization.
Dichotomies- rigidity and fluidity, menacing and friendly, the heroic and the grotesque-are an integral aspect of his work. These tensions are further heightened through formal varieties-- some geometric and reticulated, some rendered with lyrical softness revealing how stylistic decisions shape meaning and alter perception. Sadeghi's work is constantly inspired by Iranian art history. Drawing on the legacy of past miniaturists in his strokes, he boldly wields bright colors in predominantly vertical compositions, devoid of perspective. Following the line of the Iranian painting tradition, each piece is brimming wha detail, and no corner of the page is spared from the ceaseless command of his pen. Again, like miniaturists, he explores Persian literature and mythology in his works, reshaping them with his own brand of humor.
There is no certainty in Sadeghi's fantastical realm, mythology is recreated with each stroke of the pen. The recurring elements in his drawings are a conduit for experiencing paradox, ambiguity, and infinite stories. In this world, the artist is both a creator and an inhabitant. Who, or what, is the Div? The answer lies some- where between the lines.