12 June - 3 July, 2020
Dastan's Basement
#6 Beedar Street
Fereshts (Fayyazi) Street
Tehran, Iran
Photographs by Matin Jameie
“What shall I do to ease that agony, the wayfarer asked the red intellect.
Earn the fountain of life, he replied.”
Shahab ad-Din Suhrawardi (1154-1191)Aql-I Surkh (The red intellect)
For me, the fountain series is an endless project, a reflection of a spiral movement connecting the links within a chain with no definite point of closure. These fountains provided me with an opportunity to construct and reconstruct a form according to the immediate social environment that I have been working in.
In these works, I used a wide range of materials and media with contrasting properties and characteristics. For instance, in the sculptures, hard resin is used in addition to delicate ceramic and casting aluminium along with fragile glass.
The juxtaposition of different materials results in a harmony which resonates with the process of creation and destruction. The foundation of the fragile upon the solid accentuates the inherent affinity of contrasting elements: the highly vulnerable adamantine inside, suspended between the earth and the sky, like a bulk through which water flows —a water spring, undetermined and deferred.
From the smallest vertebrae in the spine to the most complex body organ and the mind, everything is in a state of equilibrium with the cycle and the source of life, becoming part of the cycle and falling apart, passing away and coming to life, instantaneously. Embracing the beauty and the natural flow of the water that runs through its course with all the pain and the paradoxes that comes with it, heedless to the end. This is what is meant by “the eternal return of the same.”
- Ila Firouzabadi
Earn the fountain of life, he replied.”
Shahab ad-Din Suhrawardi (1154-1191)Aql-I Surkh (The red intellect)
For me, the fountain series is an endless project, a reflection of a spiral movement connecting the links within a chain with no definite point of closure. These fountains provided me with an opportunity to construct and reconstruct a form according to the immediate social environment that I have been working in.
In these works, I used a wide range of materials and media with contrasting properties and characteristics. For instance, in the sculptures, hard resin is used in addition to delicate ceramic and casting aluminium along with fragile glass.
The juxtaposition of different materials results in a harmony which resonates with the process of creation and destruction. The foundation of the fragile upon the solid accentuates the inherent affinity of contrasting elements: the highly vulnerable adamantine inside, suspended between the earth and the sky, like a bulk through which water flows —a water spring, undetermined and deferred.
From the smallest vertebrae in the spine to the most complex body organ and the mind, everything is in a state of equilibrium with the cycle and the source of life, becoming part of the cycle and falling apart, passing away and coming to life, instantaneously. Embracing the beauty and the natural flow of the water that runs through its course with all the pain and the paradoxes that comes with it, heedless to the end. This is what is meant by “the eternal return of the same.”
- Ila Firouzabadi
Ila Firouzabadi (b. 1980, Tehran) studied Graphic Design in the Faculty of Art and Architecture (Azad University, Tehran) before moving to Paris where she continued her education at University Marc Bloch (Strasbourg, France) and School of Decorative Arts (Strasbourg, France). Currently living and working in Montreal, Ila has completed several residencies around the world, most notably Tabakalera (Saint Sebastian, Spain) and Servais Family Collection and Residency (Brusseles, Belgium). Her works have also been featured in numerous exhibitions like Keramikmuseum and Kuenstlerkreis Ortenau Gallery (Germany ,2009), Musée Théodore Deck and Espace Apollonia (France ,2010), OBORO Art Center (Canada ,2013).
www.ilafirouzabadi.com
www.ilafirouzabadi.com