In the series Paradise: Lilith – Eve, Rozhan Bagheri presents a fresh and questioning narrative of two mythical female figures—women who, in traditional texts, have often been rejected, overlooked, or deemed guilty.
Lilith—the first wife of Adam—based on mythological sources and in texts such as The Wisdom of Ben Sira, leaves Paradise because she refuses to submit. The angels sent to find her discover her in the midst of the sacred sea, yet she refuses to return. As a result, she is cursed, and a hundred of her children die each day. Often ignored in traditional accounts or cast as a demonic figure, Lilith here becomes a symbol of women’s independence and resilience.
Meanwhile, Eve is depicted not as the culprit or the disruptor of Paradise’s order, but as a symbol of freedom, courage, and the dawn of awareness. What has often been interpreted in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions as the moment of the “Fall” is, in these paintings, reimagined as the point of departure for a woman’s journey toward experience, decision-making, and self-awareness.
Alongside the direct depiction of Lilith and Eve, other elements in the paintings refer to different notions: the tree, the door, and the window become metaphors for decisiveness, the desire for discovery, and the crossing of defined boundaries. In these works, the artist employs flat, radiant colors, draws inspiration from Persian miniature painting, and uses repeated geometric motifs and imagined landscapes to create a space that is at once familiar and dreamlike.
In a new era where women’s presence is increasingly prominent at every level of society, this series—by revisiting the images and traits of mythical women—seeks to replace the predominantly male-centered imagery of Persian painting in recent centuries with a woman-centered perspective, one that reflects the spirit of our time. May such narratives endure.