Three Generations Year, mixed media by Maryam Safajoo
Humanity uses different vessels to spread messages that must be heard. Maryam Safajoo masterfully uses her art to share the messages of mistreatment, hostility and harassment suffered by her loved ones and by the persecuted in her home country. Her paintings and mixed media create captivating narratives of the oppression of the Bahá’ís of Iran.
Destruction of the Bahá’í Cemeteries, an oil and acrylic, uses multiple perspectives collaged or pieced together. Safajoo creates the broken viewpoints to add to the visual sense of destruction and to match the subject matter. She is able to bring observers into her thoughts and feelings with color, space and position.
A recent oil on canvas, Difficulty of the Journey, portrays the artist’s pregnant aunt and her trek to visit relatives held in prison. Safajoo is able to express the distress, torment and strain of the laborious trip. The viewer is able to be present and feel the inhumanity of her aunt’s situation.
The Separation is one of Safajoo’s strongest works. Haunting expressions with soft pastel colors of the prison bars and walls let in a tiny bit of light and a window to freedom. The unimaginable suffering and anguish is paired with the delicate colors that invite the viewer into the space to ask questions and want to learn more.
Maryam’s paintings give faces to the persecuted in Iran. She paints them as strong spirits against impossible odds. The realistic figures set about in a surreal confinement help each viewer ground and solidify an abstract distant concept of what is happening to people in Iran. Her talent is the vessel needed to inform and enlighten.
Maryam Safajoo’s art has been shown at Harvard and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Support Maryan’s work by following her on her website www.maryamsafajoo.art and on Instagram @maryam_safajoo_artwork. Look for more of her amazing paintings here on SharksEatMeat.
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