Press Release
The portrayal of women in the history of art has always been a criterion for measuring and accrediting the perspective of the dominant narrator (often male). This collection is an attempt to present a photographic narrative of a number of Iranian women who became the subject of photography at the advent of camera during the Qajar dynasty.
Pegah Derakhshan Rokni (b. 1981, Tehran) seeks to redefine the conditions of those days by using these photos, arranged according to the strict rules of still life painting. However, this time, not from the tormenting male point of view, but from the point of view of a female artist of today’s Iran.
The following portrayals are synthetic, drawn from a feminine essence that aims to approach the words left unsaid in these historical records by eliminating perspective and background details, focusing on the makeup and staged nudity of these women.
The richly patterned and decorated clothing, alongside shades of red, not only do not intend to alleviate the heavy burden of these images but also seek to intensify it.
Selected Works
Installation Views
