Paintings by Nilofar Mehrin
He released the two seas, meeting [side by side] v19
Between them is a barrier [so] neither of them transgresses v20
.So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny? v21
From both of them emerge pearl and coral.v22
Later on i saw a documentory which was on this subject and indeed there are entire rivers running beneath the waters of the ocean ! I dont have this painting and perhaps i left it in my house in Spain when i came to France in 2013 .
"The Here and Now" the painting bellow ...... curtesy of Steven Mathews ........ is one of the first big canvases and paintings which "happened", like in Action Painting . At the time it was a sexual compensation .... it was 1984 and i was 25 and i wanted to be a painter instead of being a woman 'which i thought was very limiting and the men where mostly not easy to get on with .... or it was probably the other way round ! )
I had the idea of the hands printing colour because i had read that primitive cave men had expressed themselves this way and a lot of such prints were found in the caves in all continents .... i painted in my room in via delle Cinque Giornate in Florence .... one visitor said that he thought "the dark" movement of colour in the middle of the painting was phalic ... but i interpreted it as " the phalic movement" of a "vagina" ' i didnt do it on purpose ....
it was a totally spontaneous creation and i thought that all such painting was coming from the body itself and not from the mind .... i had so much energy and i wasnt having a good relation,ship with the man in my life ie Guido . He didnt understand me at all but he said that he could read me like a book ! I could not believe he denied sexuality to be a good thing .... i should have known he was looking for some one smaller and more feminine ....
This painting in acrilic ie "Here and now" was given as a gift to Steven Mathews , my theatrical friend who was performing in Teatro del Cestello with his friend Jeff .... I admired Steven for his British sense of humour and he had the most enchanting eyes and eyebrows which put him in with the Pre Raffaellite models .... i never told him this .... he was spoilt by the girls . Infact i did want to do theater with their group but i was very timid and could nt overcome my limits .
I will always remember Jeff because he told Steve to lend me his PC so that i could write ..... it was encouraging me to write and that i found was very generous of him . They were both very attractive people but for some reason i felt we were worlds and aeons appart ....
because i could find a common ground with Italians since catholicism is an oriental mixture of beliefs similar to middle eastern ones .... where the modern mentality of the British and the Americans culture doesnt embrace any of the old world mentality (other than the jewish tradition) . I could relate perfectly to Tal who was an Isreali man who came to Joans book group . He had all the codes .... both from the jewish traditions and from the new world ....
"J'allais me donner d'un je vous aime quand je m'avisai non sans peine que d'abord je ne me possedais pas moi meme !"
poem by TS. Eliott
This was a painting was done in '90 .... i was thinking of Philippe the painter who went to the Cecil school.
When i put this poem around it .... i thought i loved the combination , it was so right and explaining everything about how i felt. I felt i didnt belong to myself not only because i wasnt european , or because i couldnt speak french like my friend cristiana, but because i was from a tradition and a culture which held me tight in its embrace. As a character type i was too attatched to were i came from. Guido who was Italian allowed a lot of space for the cultural differences and hed been to Turkey where he had been saved by a stranger who saw him in difficulty crossing a very trafficked area. This man took him on his shoulders and took him to the other side of the road. Guido had suffered from psycological things and said that in that period in his twenties he imagined that a black crow was sitting on his shoulder and watching him all the time .
He was very sensitive and said that when going through secondary school he had had to repeat an entire year of study because he had stood by a friend who hadnt gotten through the exams. I had told Guido about how i had proposed to my cousin in London and how he had told me to wait a year because he had to finish his PHD studies. Guido had told me that i should write a letter to him .... he would dictate it to me .... it was absurd to write a contrive letter to him which would probably do the trick , but then what ? How do you continue when you dont have the self confidence and are full of doubts and insecurities . My cousin was one of these sporting type of people and i couldnt communicate with those type of people as a rule.
We talked a lot about various things ... he was a sort of mentor but could not accept me to be a creative artist. Other people saw that in me, and later on when Guido had met Amour he said that he had felt for her because she had told him that she had been working in families as a help around the home and had some issues at work.
When i met the french painter ..... i was 28 .... Francesca and me came to know him in Spazio Uno film center in via del sole in Florence .... He had come to this cinema with his Iranian friend Faramarz who was 25 .
Francesca was a prescious friend , just 22 and I was 30, we were preparing for an english lit exam and this poem was something i had found in her book and it really described what i felt about my love life. it was as if some one was controlling it .... Even tho Guido was the one who was in my life and had given me a lot of warmth in his attitude .... my aspiration was a life in Art and i felt that people like philippe were unreachable for me .... because he was a painter who lived in a small studio in a villa near poggio Imperiale .... i knew i couldnt have this high maintenance person who like my British cousin made me feel inferior and had to continue with my university degree , rather than hang around the arty crowd . Much later i realized after having an Iranian working class person in my life .... that it had been Guido who had been the right one. Simply because we had the right combination of things and we could communicate .... we wanted to reach eachother . The man i met from myown country could speak the same language but wanted to hide a lot of things because he felt i wouldnt understand . It was not the right code combination.
Mr Enzo Lenzetti who was a friend of Fiorella my neigbour in via Delle Cinque Giornate too had met an Iranian woman who he had been interested in. But he could not reach her because this woman had told her to go and speak to her brothers .... which in my country means ... the men hold the strings and the negotiation goes through them ..... He bought this painting, simply because he liked it. I loved this painting very much and wouldn't have sold it if i didnt have to .... i wondered if i had to walk "the righteous and narrow path" in life all through on my own ..... many years later i was happy that God saved me from making the very negative decision in pursuing my obsession with Philippe .
An American friend observed that i had been lucky not to pursue him ..... but it had been very difficult to pass it by and i was wasting my time for about ten years struggling with the shadows in my mind about him .... i concluded that Guido had been the real one , but very irresponsable for going off with Amour and he didnt want to marry her simply because she wasnt from his own type of background whereas i fullfilled this!
Why was it all so complicated? People in my country who had had traditional marriages and had had children were living their lives , even if they had difficulty with work and money .....
"MY Time"
Is a a painting which was in the same line with Jallais me donner ....
what i learnt from meeting Philippe was: " that our time on earth is very limited and you have be carefull to invest it well "
Each little application of colour was like capturing each moment and putting it down as colour on canvas .... there is a song i wrote to go with this concept .... ie capturing the moments of one's time !
This "Rough Sea" is a painting in acrilic on canvas done at the same time as "Here and Now" both done in 1987 in via delle Cinque Giornate .... i did make it when i met an australian boy who told me that he had a phone in his car where he lived .... i was sooo impressed with this .... i wanted to move to australia because it seemed to offer the future ... infact the future became " a telephone wielding " period ... this painting was about how confused i felt about my situation at the time . Guido had met a woman and was having
a secret life and i was having difficulty with studying ....
Later on i wrote a poem saying : "Oh Life , you are like the waves ..... waves which seem to be throwing us here, there and everywhere ....
I sold this painting to an American/Danish couple who lived in house with huge walls and they sent me pictures of them on their walls .... I sold a couple of large paintings to him when he found me working in my studio and Atelier in via Fiesolana
This was acrilic on canvas .... the ideal family and happiness seemed to be what i was living right then and there . I gave this huge acrilic painting to Dottoressa Alessandro in 1988 , and i did a similar one for Paola Antichi which was commissioned by her in 1998.
"The night of the Angels" Leylath-al-qadr"
Indeed, We sent the Qur'an down during the Night of Decree.
And what can make you know what is the Night of Decree
The angels and the Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord for every matter.
Peace it is until the emergence of dawn.
This is one of the first works when i used foglio d'oro and this was because when i met Cristiana Amendola ; she taught me the tecnique of Gold Leaf 1990 ... I was envious of Cristiana because appart from her being a capable painter and restorer of art works , she was a beautiful and successful 30 year old who was sincere in her "womanhood" and respected other women, she went on to have create a family with Leonardo !
She had already been married to a french man (but divorced) and she was attractive, had long hair and wore miniskirts. She was a girl friend who Philippe liked (but she was in a relationship with some one she married ). She pretty much had everything i had wanted ! But i had my religious practice and that i guess balanced it out !
"Joseph's story" 1989
There is a whole chapter in the Holy Koran on the prophet Joseph who had had a vision of his future in Egypt . It was an unlikely dream that he dreampt and he spoke of it lightly probably because he didn't believe in it himself .... for me this picture talks about all the pieces of the puzzle having to come together. Before a dream comes true a lot of things have to happen . I didnt believe in dreams much but then the revolution in Iran changed everything for me and it was a way of trying to know what would happen next. Since in the Koran God says that souls go to him while they are sleeping, dreams are taken seriously.
I had had a first major dream in 1981 when i was staying with my relatives. I had dreamt that there was a celebration in town and all sorts of beautiful things were displayed and there was lots of food on a common table and lots to eat and drink for everyone present , the table went on and on in all the streets of this small town , and i was following it , then i met my brother who was sitting and reading the news papers and there were stacks and stacks of them .... and he was sad because the news papers seperated us and the party was not going to last for ever !
then in another dream some years ago ; i saw soldiers clad in green army clothes in every street of a peaceful city and trying to get into every house and in every corner .... you didnt know why they were there and who they were representing .... they had no proper rules and had an incomprehensible anarchist behaviour . I saw my uncle Ismile running from them .... (i think both these dreams are about surveillance).
"The Sun In The Subconscious" 1989
Is about how little we know about our subconscious mind .... Guido would call me from Rome to talk to me about the Amigdala . He was very excited about this subject and he said ..... take this Amigdola subject seriously because it is our future .... it is everything ! The Amygdala is :
The amygdala is an almond-shaped group of neurons. These groups of neurons in the brain are called "nuclei".
The word amygdala is derived from the Greek word for almond. The group of neurons is positioned in the temporal lobe of the brain. The amygdala is divided into three different groups: the basolateral nuclei, the corticomedial nuclei, and the central nucleus. The amygdala is related to the processing of emotions, especially fear. It is connected to many other parts of the brain,
He had told me that i had a very strong subconscious mind . What did that mean ... it meant , you know what you know .... somethings are mathematical equasions what some call ... "a gut feeling"and we are told not to trust our irrational part , but this is the part that "knows" things.
"Time Zones" is a painting that i took with me to Berlin and i left it in an Art Gallery there .... and i dont remember the name of the gallery ! 1991
"Sex is Everywhere ! Thank God for Ideas (ie Books) !"
Curtesy of Patrizia Antonini .... this painting is about sexuality , but mainly as in nature in general ..... every creature is trying to reproduce itself .... and i use some of my knowledge about Biology studied at school / I love the sea , and this painting is one which i would have kept , but not having a house or money i gave it to my dear friend Patrizia who was a 23 year old when i met her at Uni ... she had just written her Thesis on the Feminist interpretation of Fairy tales of Perrault . She helped me finish university by allowing me to use her PC to write my dissitation .
Personal Computers came out just around the 90's and only the rich could afford them and she had one in her appartment and i was allowed to go to her place everyday to use her PC to write my book . I was also allowed to use her list of books on the subject. just about then we heard that Angela Carter had died. When i told Guido, he thought it was some sort of sign!
Guido didnt believe me to be a femminist .... because he found them to be aggressive women . Patrizia could be pretty aggressive because she was a sports woman and that gave her a sort of self confidence which i certainly didnt have. Infact when she left her Police officer boyfriend i thought it unbelievable ! The reason she said was because he had beenof the opinion that if they had a daughter he wouldnt push her to get through university because "girls got married and found a husband who would look after them" ie girls didnt need to get a career! The femminist in her , having heard this, made up her mind that she couldnt marry himfor his opinion !
For me her warmth and friendship were a true God send and i was to observe her young life as a by stander. She has had the authentic interest in women and women's issues and has been working as a journalist for many years . Her husband and her daughter follow her in the countries where she is assigned .
"Equilibrium "
1985
This picture is about how there is a golden moment of equilibrium which we can achieve through hard work but there is the confusing well of things that is waiting on the side ....
"A Letter from Sarajevo"
1993/95
Who expected the war in Bosnia to happen ? Ex yugoslavia and what happened there will never go away now that the soviets and their mind sets have conquered space in the American Democratic hearts . But i dont trust the equality they want to sell , simply because i dont choose to forget about what they did to the female population of Bosnia ..... not to speak of the 8000 men and boys who were executed in cold blood while they were hoping that it wouldnt happen to them !
Women used as " weapons of war" in the recent european war in ex yugoslavia
An estimated 12,000–20,000 women were raped, most of them Bosniak.[26][296] This has been referred to as "Mass rape",[297][298][299]particularly with regard to the coordinated use of rape as a weapon of war by members in the VRS and Bosnian Serb police.[297][298][299][300]For the first time in judicial history, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) declared that "systematic rape", and "sexual enslavement" in time of war was a crime against humanity, second only to the war crime of genocide.[297] Rape was most systematic in Eastern Bosnia (e.g. during campaigns in Foča and Višegrad), and in Grbavica during the siege of Sarajevo. Women and girls were kept in various detention centres where they had to live in intolerably unhygienic conditions and were mistreated in many ways including being repeatedly raped. A notorious example was "Karaman's house" in Foča.[301][302] Common complications among surviving women and girls include psychological and other physical disorders, as well as unwanted pregnancies
These two political pictures about Sarajevo and about Bosnia dont mean anything now because people choose to forget the madness and try to get on with their life when it is possible ..... but there was the man who thought of all the mischief and everyone was looking for him while he was living a quiet life in his back garden ie Radovan Karadzic , He had some good friends watching out for him and protecting him.
Wiki says : Croat–Bosniak War that escalated in early 1993.[13] The Bosnian War was characterised by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing and systematic mass rape, mainly perpetrated by Serb,[14] and to a lesser extent, Croat[15] and Bosniak[16] forces. Events such as the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre later became iconic of the conflict.
Radovan Karadžić (left), former president of Republika Srpska, Ratko Mladić (right), former Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republika Srpska, both sentenced by the ICTY.
"Something Happening in Space"
This is one of the first paintings i ever sold and it was to a friend of a friend . A woman from Puglia who had come to visit and i could only tell her that it was about space ... and i loved the freshness of the colours in it, (1986)
"Il contatto interstellare"
why should we doubt that there are living creatures out in space ... just because we dont see them ?
"The Contact"
I adore this painting because it reminds me of "Star Treck" and Space science fiction films ..... it could even be like the screen to my personal space ship floating in outer space ....
This painting was sold in the Mondo Arte Gallery in Dubai (in the Kempinskij Mall) in 2008 by Roberto a very kind young man from Milan who was working to sell the Art work and he told me that "The Contact " had been bought by an American . He would plead with the woman incharge to pay the artists because Rafaella the manager would be taking her sweet time ..... At Mondo Arte Gallery there was also Anna Maria Bersani from Genova who was an artchitect and who sold many other of my paintings , sadly Mondo Arte closed in 2010 !
" Da Sein" or "Esserci" ( Being "here" in english )
1990
I liked this painting which has a name taken from Heideger 's philosophy "Dasein" . If you look at the lower central part you will see a shadow and that is me pouring over the canvas while i am working on it . This is me at the age of 32 . Still confident that i could win ! That the "future" held lots of good things ... i was wrong because the future held "surveillance witha big S and lots of "limitations" . I wanted more freedom , and freedom was living just next door to my room and he was called Peter.
This Painter was from LA and i had rented out a room to him in the Cinque Giornate appartment. He had just come in from Holland where he said he had sold some of his art work. He used to listen to music a lot and i heard all of "Red Hot Chili Peppers" music streaming out of his room . I was overwhelmed when he said that he wanted to go to visit Iran with me ! It was just too much and anyway probably impossible. At this point i was uninterested in any form of relationship and off he went with Vanessa , the young 20 year old who was one of my guests too . He believed in Art with a capital A.
"Cosmopolitan Time"
I loved this painting which i thought was like a fountain of life and inspired by persian carpets ..... the movement and the musicality in this picture is unique and happened by chance ... nothing in the colours of this painting was planned expect for the structure and the design .
"La musica e il silencio"
I have written about this painting in a book called A Time For Dreamers"
"Extasis"
"The Organic Flow"
This painting was called Ofelia because i had painted the girl from a picture lying in the water .... but then it got transformed from negative to positive because i found my idea of the fountain within .... and the refreshing flow of water .... and
i chose the name Nile ie Nilo in Italian which is an abreviation of my name .... like my favorite painter HundertWasser with his bizantine colours .... a painter of flowing waters .....
"Existence"
I have written about this painting in the book "A Time for Dreamers"
"Panorama subacquea" 1988
It was a hot summer and this was three meters of canvas which i filled in with a vision of the down under water landscape . I had had an underwater experience in the indian ocean . We had gone out in a yatch belonging to a family friend of a friend called Mokhtar ... the men who were wearing the sub suits caught some fish ... i dived in the water but only had a vision of dark masses of water on me and it was frightening not to see anything , i mean the water was not see through like in the Carabean...
"Arc en Ciel" 1987
This was a painting that happened after having watched a film about a woman painter who saw further than the people around her and who was a visionary creative person . Generally it is hoping for a better future and looking forward to it.
These paintings were done on canvas on "Gold leaf" which i learnt from Cristiana who was a beautiful blond and a model at the traditional Accademy of painting.
"Memorie e Nostalgie" 1994
"Momenti Brillanti" 1991
"The pink sitting room" 2007
"Viareggio" 2007
"Noor" 1987
translation of surat (chapter) 24, v; 35
Describing God as the light of the heavens and the earth
"Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. A likeness of His Light is as a niche (a source that gives off light) in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, the glass is as it were a brightly shining star, lit from an oil of a blessed tree that is neither in the east nor in the west. The oil whereof gives light on its own, even if no fire touches it. (It is) a light upon light. Allah delivers to His Light whom He wills and Allah sets forth parables for mankind. And Allah is All-Knowing of everything."
Casa a "Poggio Imperiale " This is a villa close to Poggio Imperiale , which is a place i used to walk to , it was where philippe lived in a studio Atelier a large room with a large window and terrace looking onto a garden with a row of cyprce trees leading to the main door.
curtesy of Marina di Iasio 1990
"Aboriginal Dream Time"
curtesy of Lorenzo Lenzetti 1995
"The sitting Room" 2004
A Big Canvas painting which i sold through a shop called Babele
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