Perception
25 August -22 September, 2017
Assar Art Gallery
exhibition of drawings by Nafisseh Sedighi

In her first solo show ever, since her professional presence in the art world in 2004, Nafisseh Sedighi exhibits eight refined monochromatic drawings of trees created in the past two years.

Focusing meticulously on details of tree trunks and branches, the artist attempts to find a strong self-expressive tone by creating an imaginary world that intuitively resembles photorealistic illustrations. Depicting her own improvised world in black and white compositions, Nafisseh Sedighi magnifies her extreme responsiveness to detail, which plays a significant role in her artistic approach.

To her, nature and human figure are two vehicles with many similarities through which she has found the ease to emotionally and figuratively express herself. She believes that it’s through self-expression that the essential truth will be disengaged from the outward appearance of the objects or things she represents and that’s what her compositions aim to convey.

With a closer look at her detailed invented representations and at the same time paying attention to their general appearance, aside acknowledging the artist’s powerful renders, one realizes the game she plays with the conceptual relationship between reality and truth referring to what Matisse believed in: “Exactitude is not Truth”.

Applying different shades of black and gray and distancing herself from color, aggrandizing a cropped detail of intermingled roots and branches and creating volume and texture on flat backgrounds, all help Nafisseh show her audience how reality could be perceived, altered and re-invented by an individual through detail.

Born in 1978 in Isfahan, Iran where she currently lives and works, Nafisseh Sedighi’s work has been subject to many domestic biennials and group exhibitions. Despite holding a Master’s Degree in painting, she sees herself more of a self-taught painter due to all her personal observations and professional practices and studies. In the past 13 years, Nafisseh Sedighi has been teaching drawing and painting at universities and art academies in Isfahan.