Arghavan Khosravi

Interview by Eva Mayhabal Davis

Connecting in the midst of spring with Arghavan, we brought about a conversation on her art practice. Keeping present motifs from her native Iran, her paintings are embellished with textiles, panels and canvases that take on the shape of their subject. Through a keen study of painting, the composition of each work presents surreal scenes and various symbols that tell a story that is of the conscious and subconscious mind. Arghavan’s interests lie in the representation of women and their legacy as subjects, touching upon themes of both oppression and prowess. Drawing from the influence of the depiction of women in Renaissance painting in parallel with Persian miniature painting. Linking relationships that are not only from Eastern and Western traditions but also from past and present. Relating these contrasts in painting to the Iranian consciousness that she has observed and lived. There is a lauding of women as they face and live through patriarchal and totalitarian ideologies. We spoke about the connections between fabrics, colors, and the power of the female gaze through a recent body of work.

Eva Mayhabal Davis (EMD): Your background in art is extensive, and the elements of design, illustration and art history are evident in your work. Can you elaborate on your studies?

Arghavan Khosravi (AK): In Iran we have to decide about our major in college at an early age (seventeen years old or even younger) and at that age my idea for a future career was much more practical. Back then, I thought of graphic design at the intersection of a practical profession and art. Although I enjoyed all those years when I was a full time graphic designer, it did not feel satisfying enough. In graphic design there was always a client to whom I had to listen and what I did was at the service of communicating whatever message they had; whether it was a poster, a logo or a product package, etc.

EMD: How did painting come about?

AK: In design, I didn’t have that much of a chance to express myself and the outcome of my work was limited to the client’s desires and preferences. So, after almost ten years of being a graphic designer I decided to pursue my ambition of becoming a painter and came to the US for graduate school.

There is something very satisfying about the materiality of painting itself compared to graphic design, which these days is mostly done by computer. I would also like to add that when I look back at the journey I’ve had so far I don’t regret studying graphic design in college. It helped to have an understanding of visual arts from a different perspective from if I’d studied painting since the beginning. In graphic design I learned a lot about things like composition and color that I’m now using in my paintings. It helped me to form my aesthetics in a way which might be different from a painter who trained more conventionally.

EMD: This brings to mind your recent series of work, This Shall Also Pass. In these new multi-media paintings, the figures have a stance with dignity and strength while also in the face of vulnerable scenes. The figures in your paintings resonate with a connection of generations of women. What are your thoughts on this?

AK: I want to highlight issues, like violence against women, which in reality can be in so many ways obvious and apparent but many times it’s also hidden or underneath the surface. As a result, the paintings look and feel less violent–while the harm is more layered, the violence can be verbal and emotional, most times not all very visible.

I try to translate this into the paintings. There are no depictions of very violent scenes and even at the first glance it can look like a very peaceful situation and the more you look at the details you find some moments where something unpleasant is going on.

The choice of colors in some paintings also helps this idea in that the colors look aesthetically in harmony, colorful and not just dark or dull colors. The bright colors invite you to look closer and realize that there are some narratives and situations in the paintings that are not aligned with the happy feelings associated with those colors.

Simultaneously, as I paint women as subjects of certain levels of injustice I do not place them in a position of weakness, I do not want to subscribe to a notion of victimization but rather I want to give them power. Hopefully, they can control what is going on and change these injustices.

The Anatomy of A Woman Series #2, 2020

Acrylic on cotton canvas and found wood block printed textile mounted on two shaped wood panels

54 x 25 in.

EMD: They are not victims at all, they show us by example in their monumental presence. I think that this is in part because of the composition of each panel and the patterns for the details of their clothes—beautiful and complex. Where are they from?

AK: For the clothes, I use textile rather than painting. These textiles are from Iran—I asked my father to send me a selection of different textiles that are traditionally made there. Some are hand wood block printed, others are woven with metallic threads and all the designs are traditional. So their colors and patterns are already visually connected to a context that I’m coming from. At the same time, I attempt to make paintings with these textiles which are for anyone to connect to through common symbolism and familiarity. In general, I’m not interested in the idea of exoticism.

EMD: You’re setting a stage for a universal gaze, specifically with the use of fabric. Textile itself is a quotidian reminder of wherever home is. These layers help me read further into the surrealist layers in the work. For a long time in history, textile has recorded the stories of humanity and today we’re still inspired by their legacy and tradition. In the painting, The Anatomy of A Woman Series #2, for instance, the hands are soft and the fingers are holding the small painting with care, giving a sensation of lightness. There’s a contrast of this care with the very graphic depiction in the small painting that she’s holding. As if she’s caring for the depiction of a bleeding womb, acting as a self-portrait or a portrait of any other woman that may see themselves reflected here. The layers of symbols resonate clearly, can you expand on them?

AK: The hands are appropriated from a Renaissance painting. I like working with this juxtaposition of imagery from different (and often contrasting) contexts and different eras—I think it helps the paintings to be accessible to a wider audience. I like how in Renaissance paintings, figures are often depicted with some notion of idealism which isn’t necessarily realistic. The little picture that she’s holding here is also an appropriation from an old manuscript which was for medical purposes—I like their depictions of women. There’s variation in time and origin and geography that ultimately connects.

I'm more interested in conveying what I have in mind through symbols because I think it gives the audience the opportunity to find their own interpretation of the paintings. There's a slow revealing of visual codes which I think is more poetic and relates the painting to surrealism.

Surrealism is a movement that I look at and enjoy because it connects your self with your subconscious. Most of my paintings are reflections of my memories or life experiences in Iran. When you're dealing with your memories the subconscious plays a role in your storytelling.

“I'm more interested in conveying what I have in mind through symbols because I think it gives the audience the opportunity to find their own interpretation of the paintings. There's a slow revealing of visual codes which I think is more poetic and relates the painting to surrealism.”

EMD: Symbolism allows for so much interpretation connecting the personal to a universal sensibility. There’s always a risk of homogenizing experiences, especially in gendering issues, but in your work layers of symbols and compositions allow the viewer to explore their own experiences—this freedom helps to create empathy and growth. Another work in that series The Anatomy of A Woman Series #4, the figure has her eyes covered and head covered holding what looks like a red threaded cinder block, with the paintbrush, is this a self-portrait?

AK: It's actually a mirror which is hard to photograph.

EMD: Wow, thank you for explaining that—the perils of online viewing rooms (laughs). The figure’s stance and fabric pattern drew me into wanting to see what she carried. Which now seems clear in that she carries our (the viewers’) reflection wrapped in the red thread. It’s not just blank but it’s everyone’s red lines, boundaries, borders, and impediments.

AK: Yes, as opposed to the figure with her face almost covered, the audience can see their own faces in the mirror, behind the red lines, which symbolize the boundaries that we are told not to overpass–those systemic restrictions that are part of traditional patriarchal societies or authoritarian countries. This may not be what all viewers interpret from the painting at first glance, but if they’re familiar with the work’s context hopefully they associate the red lines with these ideas.

As you look in the mirror there is one sole vertical gold line, which is coming down from the brush. As opposed to the red lines which have a negative connotation, the gold symbolizes something hopeful.

The Anatomy of A Woman Series #4, 2020

Acrylic on cotton canvas and found textile mounted on two shaped wood panels, thread, mirror

38 x 31 in.

EMD: A life line of sorts that immediately connects to the audience. Calling in the viewer to find and see the deeper issues through self-reflection—it guides me to connect beyond a societal issue into a cultural consciousness where we as a society need to advocate and advance changes beyond our governments and policy.

AK: Yes, that’s why it’s also not a self-portrait, but rather the paintbrush is a hint for creating and owning the narrative and having agency.

EMD: A piece that I think speaks to this too is Quite Determined, where the glass shatters before the portrait—I love the slow motion and detail of the glass that connected me back to 2016’s conversations of shattering glass ceilings with Hilary Clinton on the ballot. The disappointment of this era and the mainstream narrative for women in the western world opens your eyes to a reality that’s just as oppressive. In the portrait, the woman’s eyes are red, intense, and one slowly sees that the rest of her body is tied in red thread. She’s as calm as she is fierce.

AK: Her portrait and whole body is in a very calm position suggesting that she is in control of the situation. With the glass I was thinking about shattered pieces that can act as a knife, cutting and causing great harm.

We can look at the famous metaphor of the “glass ceiling”—which of course refers to invisible barriers against women—from the angle that in patriarchal societies, if a woman breaks that ceiling, it can cause rebuttal from the patriarchal structure and the very same glass, now shattered in pieces, would cause great harm.

I like how you can look at glass as a layered metaphor because it can be looked at as something that protects (for example, you put precious things behind glass), as a barrier (an invisible one), or something which harms (in the case of being shattered).

Quite Determined (The Anatomy of A Woman Series), 2020

Acrylic on cotton canvas and found textile mounted on two shaped wood panels, rope

37 x 17 in.

EMD: These contrasting meanings and cycles bring to mind the work After A Long Day where there’s a body emerging from the earth with details of a carpet, cracked cement.

AK: Yes, it’s painted directly on textile, which looks like a worn out carpet—the idea of this painting came to my mind when I looked at a picture of a woman lying in a bathtub. I wanted to disrupt that peaceful imagery, making it uncomfortable by replacing the water with cement. It has a sensation of being stuck or buried in this weight.

EMD: I was taken aback by the darkness of the idea that she’s being buried, instead I think of her as emerging, coming out of a heavy place and then seeing the title made me laugh. There is a simple sarcasm that is joyful against the darker ideas.

AK: Often in my paintings I try to suggest the opposite of their titles, and in this one I’m giving a hint towards resting and the cycles of weight and lightness.

EMD: I see this idea again in The Morning Ritual, a piece that is very much aligned with the current status of the world. The painting of a young woman reading a book, in a surreal space.

AK: This work was completed in early 2020, in some way predicting the angst of the global pandemic.

EMD: I was drawn into the scenery. At the center, the phone lights up towards an opaque hand or where the hand radiates energy. The parallel is drawn when the smartphone becomes part of a visual lexicon as much as the Venus de Milo is part of an art historical cannon. It is awkward to see the woman reading, which is an unplugged activity (almost foreign in a zoom age).

AK: The whole composition (especially the stacked perspective) and the greenery are inspired by Persian miniature painting in which the perspective does not have a vanishing point. These images are also paired with an ancient Greek sculpture of woman bust (which is almost decayed) as a continuum of history. In this work I juxtapose imagery appropriated from Persian miniature paintings with a Greek antiquity, the smartphone and the contemporary clothes the figure wears. So, the contrast is not only the binary of Eastern-Western but also old-contemporary. This contrast (between tradition and modernity) has been part of the Iranian consciousness for many years.

Even before the pandemic, Iranians had gone through a couple of very traumatic years (not the usual trauma). From the nationwide unrest and protests in 2019 that ended up with a very brutal crackdown, to the tensions between the US and Iran where the two countries were on the brink of a war. However, the most traumatic event I have ever witnessed (on a social level) was the shutdown of an Ukrainian commercial flight by a missile from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp right after taking off from Tehran airport in 2020. 179 innocent people died in that incident and among them, I personally knew two by proxy.

Every morning I would wake up to check my phone and read the latest news from Iran. This painting reflects on that “morning ritual”.

EMD: This angst is ongoing, personal and global. It feels like stronger strides can be made forward for healing and positive changes. Thank you for sharing these details on your thoughts and your work and the vision that you share for our self reflection, women, and the imagination.

Eva Mayhabal Davis

Eva Mayhabal Davis has curated exhibitions at BronxArtSpace, En Foco, Expressiones Cultural Center, MECA International Art Fair, Photoville NY, Queens Museum, and Smack Mellon, among others. She is a co-director at Transmitter, a Brooklyn-based collaborative curatorial initiative. Based in New York, she collaborates with artists and creatives in the production of exhibitions, texts, and events. She is a founding member of El Salón, a meetup for cultural producers based in New York.