Florence lungarno 1998/99 Watercolour
Florence is where i went to university and i lived in this city for 23 years first as a student and then having my own studio/gallery in via Fiesolana where i lived in the room above the shop from 1998 to 2005.
Abstraction (these paintings were photograühed by Marco Pardini in Florence Italy in the late 90's)
"Here and now"
This is an Acrilic painting which i gave as a gift to my friend. I had met Steven at the University of Florence because i started to study for a BA degree in English and German Language Literature. It was 1984, At the time Steven Mathews and his best friend Jeff were teaching English at the University and they were looking for people who were interested in acting in amatorial plays . In later years they would present some plays at the Teatro del Cestello in Florence. I loved theatre but when i went to talk to Steven at his home about taking part in the plays , he gave me a text to read in which there were names of body parts which i was too ashamed of to say out loud and that put my ambitions and my career as an actor in it's place.
I loved the music and the sense of humour which was part of Steve's life and personality .... he was very sociable and i had never met any one like him when i was living in London. "Here and Now" was about being primitive and wanting to express yourself anyway you could .... It was about sexuality about wanting to create rather than to make babies ....
One visitor who was a young german student said that the central part of it was rather phalic and i never thought about it that way .... later on i thought it was rather a picture of the Phalus women carry in them (the power of ) because it is in their opinions and their use of language where they can change things ( while nobody can see them doing it). Niki saint Phalle knows something on that subject .... wo/man .... charged with that flying energy, which can also be captured and harnessed into something spiritual (Art)
Carpe Diem ! ie the Latin for "Live right now" ! I had met another Steven who was from Australia .... i was painting these pictures and he had told me that he had a car with a telephone in it .... and i was really impressed ! this was long before Mobiles or Smart Phones were common . he told me : "stop painting that picture and come and sit with me" ! But i didn't ..... i kept on painting and thinking about the future i was pursuing and i wanted (i was very much entangled in relationships and achievements in that moment) ....
Who would have thought that the future would then turn out to be about Mobiles and communications and Climate change and (Lack of) population controle in Asia and Africa and about the Reds finally taking over the planet?
Exstasis 1987
This was a painstaking creation like the other ones i had done in London and Karachi .
It was about the moon and water and the rivers which were flowing in the oceans .... i was looking at things then as in Particles because digital images were all little squares and that molecular vision of the world was with me for many years to come. How awsome to live in a world were rivers were flowing in the oceans ..... it still gives me reason to live . I have suffered from depression and have been sad about the world being what it is (ie a Cold place) but when you look at nature and the structure of it .... the systems and the mecchanisms and the things that other people have discovered .... it all points at the religious view that every thing has it's place in the world .... that gives the hope and the meaning which some of us crave for.
"I was going to say ........ "
1988
This painting meant a lot to me. I had a feeling that there were people interfering in my private life even when i was living in London in my uncles house. I felt something was going on , it wasnt paranoia . After the Revolution in 1979 (i was in the UK when it happened and very non political)
I was at Saint Martins one day at a reunion and this red headed man who i didnt know said something which made me understand that he knew a lot about me. He was Irish and rather detachted. later on in my life i would meet people like him who were not interested in me as a person but rather "watching" in a judgemental way.
I started out doing this painting thinking about computers and the digital world and all the possibilities it had brought to humanity but then my own condition was controlled by people who were biased one way or another ..... probably racist (but i didnt know this then) or possibly military ? because all the military people in the world seem to be priviledged no matter which country they come from.
But the "declaration" which was a sentence from the poem by T.S. Eliot was saying : "I was about to tell you that i loved you, but i realized that i didnt belong to myself" and that was how i felt .... not because of family or religion or culture ..... this was something bigger . In later years when i was in my thirties, one total stranger ( woman) in Florence Italy came up to me and said out of nowhere that now that i had a BA degree i only had a chance with "worker" men . After another 10 years another stranger (woman) i met in Paris at a womans shelter said out of the blue " if you get together and or marry with coloured or black men no one will object to it" ! it was as if there were other people deciding for me.... Wierd! Just to please them i will say "God Willing" good things happen because God wants them to happen and "they" may have a role in people's lives , but it is all good anyway.
My impression was that the longer i took about deciding .... the more i would get manipulated by the racists or who ever was putting me into a category .... my suspiscions were confirmed about this in 2017 when Wilma an italian friend of mine "kindly" pointed out that there now exsisted a "cast System" (she was from a military family) Wilma's background had been democratic .... i think she was one of the only sincere people who made me realize what the truth was (about my situation and position in society ) after the year 2000. Thank you Wilma .... for the love in those words ....
The world population was now categorized ; on the one hand there were the Chinese and all the backward people ( meaning from the countryside ... and all the third world , possibly the elderly everywhere and the sick) and then there were the "on top of it" people who rode on their high horses
meaning the rich and the influential on the globe , possibly all middle class europeans and upper middle classes who had money ....
When i first met Margaret Crowther she said the phrase which was unforgettable : she said : " the world is your oyster" .... and i was puzzeled by it ... why was she saying this to me ? Is it because if you are a creative person , your nationality can matter less (to some people)?
My Time 1986 2.00x1.50 acrylic on Canvas
"The Night of the Angels": acrilic on canvas 1990
The Spiritual muscle is like a physical one .... you have to work with it and make it stronger and that is when you feel well and whole ..... Singing the praise to the creator of the universe is called Zikr ....
This painting was inspired by the Surat al Qadr :
- Verily! We have sent it (this Qur'an) down in the night of Al-Qadr (Decree)
- And what will make you know what the night of Al-Qadr (Decree) is?
- The night of Al-Qadr (Decree) is better than a thousand months (i.e. worshipping Allah in that night is better than worshipping Him a thousand months ).
- Therein descend the angels and the Ruh [Jibrael (Gabriel)] by Allah's Permission with all Decrees,
- Peace! (All that night, there is Peace and Goodness from Allah to His believing slaves) until the appearance of dawn.
"Joseph's Dream"
acrylic on canvas 1990
This is a painting which refers to the famous biblical "dream story": The Prophet Joseph interpreted dreams and this about how dreams are delicate images that cannot always be remembered. The pheroah's dream was about (his) world (s) economics , ie the Seven fat cows and the Seven thin cows.
(I saw in a dream a lot of soldiers walking into every street and every house ... this dream was in the begining of the millenium and i had never dreamt of soldiers before .... i think it was about Populism ..... )
"The Subconscious sun"
This is a painting about when things all come together ..... this experience is called a "miracle" ie when you find yourself "in the right place" and "at the right time" and everything is positively going well for you and going in the direction you want for yourself and your entourage ....
the other interpretation is the Subconscious working for you and taking you in the direction you want to go .... i was observing some ducklings swimming in a pond and they were recently hatched but knew exactly what to do .... is that instinct ? Our subconscious is full of images ... i found this in an experiment when spending time with paper and watercolours .... i had images some of which were prophetic .... what can you see in this ?
"Time Zones" 1.50x1.50 acrilic
i left this painting with a gallerist in Berlin
"Music and Silence" bacrylic on canvas 1985
Saraievo and Ex Yugoslavia 1992 -1995
"Memorie e Nostalgie" 1995 1.50x1.50 foglio d'oro and oil painting on Canvas
These two paintings are about the war in ex Yugoslavia in 1992/1995
I have another two large paintings about this war which was going on close to Italy. Sometimes i would see some people walking down via Fiesolana with fishing rods and they would tell me that they had walked down from one of the regions there .... it was unbelievable and a lot of people didn't care one way or the other , but i cared and Robin my frined from New York cared and we wrote letters to fashion magazines asking them why they were not writing about what was happening to women in this area . They eventually got round to doing it some years after .
"Letter from Sarajevo" 1992/95 (3.00x1.50) Acrylic
"Letter From Sarajevo" 1994/95 Acrylic (3.00x1.50)
"Equilibrium"1989
The dark Space we have inside is called depression and the disability to be able to cope with reality. Even when there isn't a war going on , and even when we are living in a comfortable situation .... this dark space has the power to turn up .... or surface .... some religious people call it the devil within . Joyce Meyer is an Evangelist preacher , a women who speaks about her own experiences . I find it incredibly refreshing that she actually manages to come out saying and talking about certain issues which a lot of us sweep under the carpet and don't want to approach. Joel Osteen was the first person who i found preaching on the TV , he is another Evangelist which i found by chance who speaks about all the questions "we all wanted to ask but we never got round to doing it" : i came to the conclusion that Religion and psycology are very close .... but with a difference that the Equilibrium or sense of Harmony with in us which we all seek is something that happens rarely on it's own. It is a cultivated garden for which you have to work every day.
Creating a painting or an art work brings us close to the core . The part of us which is buried under experience. Religion teaches us in theory that we should keep the core first place .... ie the heart should be well and alive, but the world is a difficult place and some people decide that they can forget about sesitivity and focus on the practical . Your choice between the two makes you the person you want to be.
I have written about this painting in the book "A Time For Dreamers"
"Da Sein" 1.50x1.50 Acrylic on Canvas
I was 32 when i started this painting and the shadow that fell on the canvas while i was working on it is in the bottom center. Being there in the "here and now" and making something in the moments while you are alive and all is helping you to use your time favorably. Art for Art's Sake means that there isn't a King or Queen who is commisioning it. You to create an Art Work for it's own sake and get nothing for doing it. Nor is it a commission from a wealthy family. In this context i want to mention my visit to a Patron of the arts home with Nicholas Wright.
At Adzak Muse'e (2017) , Margaret sent me to one of The Rothschids homes, in order to accompany and help Nicholas deliver a sculpture to his client ( Nicholas is Roy Wright's nephew who makes beautiful ceramics) . This visit to a home where art was appreciated was very interesting because there were other artists who had their work in the owner's collection. The Lady of the house, was offering us coffee and biscuits and talking about the different pieces she had in her drawing room.
We had put Nicholas's ceramic chicken as a center piece on an enormous table with an Italian marble top ( a work of intarsio), where it looked gorgeous and we were sitting at another table. This was a house with a garden in Paris but full of the feeling of the fun of the sixties.
Two large paintings belonged to a close American painter friend with whom Lady R went to parties (considering the times were probably prohibitive and full of decorum).
Iris Clair was a Gallerist of Greek extraction who was in the party going scene at the time. She was a very energetic and a genius bizness woman who thought of exhibiting Art in large industrial containers strategically placed next to such parties sought out by the rich and the influential in Paris.....
Roy had made a copy of Iris's legs in his collection which are now in the UK.
My piece of art work "Da Sein" was given to some people in Bergamo by myself because they had an Art Fair there and i wanted it to be in some one elses house rather than my own . I picked up the name "Da Sein" from my studies of Heidegger at University.
"Dream Time" (From the concept "Aboriginal Dream Time")
1.50x1.50 Foglio d'oro on Canvas
the writing reads : " I try to forget the little squares of time running towards the past" Part of the poem "Song for the blue eyed one"
"Cosmopolitan Time" !.50x1.50 (Acrylic on canvas)
"Arc en ciel" 3.00x1.50 (Acrylic)
"Exsistence" 2.00x1.50 Acrylic
I have written about this painting in the book "A Time For Dreamers"
"Energies and Tendencies" 300x1.50 Acrylic1.50x1.50
I have written about this in the book "A Time For Dreamers"
water pictures
"Extasis" 1.50x1.50 Acrylic on Canvas 1988
"Waves " Acrylic on Canvas 1985
work in progress ......
"Subaquea" 200x1.50 Acrylic on Canvas 1987
Cursty of Marco Pardini. Photographer from Viareggio.
"Primordial soup" 200x1.50
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 1987
"Brilliant Moments" 1.50x1.50
Gold leaf and oil on Canvas
"Sea Picture"
"Panorama Subaqueo" 300x1.50 Oil on Canvas
"Creation"
"Alice "
"The organic flow"
About Ophelis
"The underwater world of Myths"
Space
Working on "The Contact"
"The Contact"
Sold in Mondo Arte Gallery in Dubai
"Star Material" 200x1.50 oil on canvas
sold to a friend who lives in Puglia
"The World Of Micro organisms. Virus and Bacteria" Oil on canvas
"Planetary" !988 Watercolour on Paper
"Planetary" !988 Watercolour on Paper 0.50x0.25cm
"Pulsar"
Water colour on Paper 1988
"Pulsar"
Water colour on Paper 1988
"Imaginary space station home" 1999
Water colour on Paper
sculptures
I was doing these sculptures listening to music and it was my idea of recuop Art and what it must be to create using Metal.
relationships
This was part of a series of watercolours which i did in 1991/92 .... some of which were sold to a private person in the city of Prato .... others were bought from me from Ms Blanca Huber in Frankfurt am Mein 2017
Mooshie and Mooshina my companions for more than 15 years
Venice
High rise Buildings
"Metropolis"
City Scape
"Ventimiglia " 2005
I discoverd Ventimiglia when i went to Mentone on the French Italian Border. It gave me a good feeling and i made a picture about it which is from my fantasy and not realistic at all.
Florence
"The Joker invites you to play in his game"
This was one of my very first images ... . in 1980/81 i was living at my Aunts place in Karachi and i had the idea that all socializing was basically a game .... and most of it was not sincere. Later on i wss convinced that animals were easier subjects of affection than other humans. The Demons of varying emotions were infact was i was feeling in the axiety i had for doing the right social things. As a young woman two of my peers suddenly went into ill health and that opened my eyes to the fact that our health is something that can inexplicaply disappear from one day to the next. One of our family friends, a woman my age Raabeeh Daneshpooy who was just married in Tehran started to deteriorate with the same illness which hit Mohammad Ali the Boxer. Nevertheless she courageously went on to have her three children. Another friend Faeyeh in Karachi lost the use of her legs, contracting something like polio. However grateful i was for my health i began to understand that issues of the heart were just as serious as physical illness. Unrequited love could be a very difficult thing to face on ones own .... (my mother was useless at being sympathetic but fortunately God sent me an Angel who saved me by the skin of my teeth and he was called Guido!) .... However hard this was , i can smile and say that the same person who was playing a game , came back after an entire year had past to see that i had not waited around pining and wilting like Juliet and had moved on to other bigger and better things. life puts us in those situations and some of us turn to drugs and others to Alcohol , and the best way is to enjoy whatever it is that is going on at the time ....
via delle cinque giornate
"what are you thinking? Soheil" 1980
"The Source"
1980
Saint George and the Dragon 1981
curtsy of Ms D'Iasio
"Casa in Campagna"
curtsy of Ms D'Alessandro
Working together at Ricci's jewellry store with Anna and her sister , Marion and Rossana and Jane 1984
![The way we live now: memoirs of an Asian (woman) painter in Florence in the 90's (The Old Bridge Of Florence And Paintings Book 4) by [Mehrin, Nilofar]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51nKNtTaoTL.jpg)
thirty and at uni living with flatmate creative Verena from Dusseldorf and Nadia (not in picture) 1990
twenty three and full of hopes to learn a new language, with a creative Scottish friend 1983
flatmate Carina from Stockholm and friend 1992
Some Images and Cards about Florence
Santo Spirito Square as a theater where people met and parted
Lungo Arno : along the river
Santo Spirito Square was also where Sarina lived as a student of "Canto" in a subrented appartment. She lived with Marco Pardini and he was a photoghrapher from Viareggio who practiced Buddism and he took pictures of my art work and paintings. To thank him i made a gift of one of my paintings which was a sea painting
Joan and Fred were a couple i met at the Language school who had organized an informal book group on Sundays. Joan had had a book store in Texas and was a femminist . She said she had been opressed as a young girl growing up in a traditional wealthy southern family in the US . I couldnt believe that you could have a cathegory of white and opressed or repressed wealthy woman hood! It is after all our relationship within the family that count for everything we become . I used to have dinner parties in the terrace in Via delle Cinque Giornate and once Joans father was visiting her and he came for dinner with them and i remember him saying something which struck me as special and that was : "all the farmers in the world were people who understood each other perfectly .... rather like a guild" . Joan and Fred invited me for xmas and thanks giving dinners too.
I usually didn't or couldn't read the books but i went there to hear about the topics which were being discussed and that was an enriching experience in itself. Tal was another one of their guests who came often to listen in . He was a student of psychiatry and practiced Yoga (like my father) and he was a yoga teacher as well. ..... from Israel. he had been through the compulsery army service and i wondered what it must have been like for him because he would say about this experience : "that the state owns the individual people in the army " ie you are not that much of an individual in that situation. Tal was very charming and knowledgeable and a lot of young people at the Cecil Art School looked to him as a sort of "guru" or leader. Verena was a young girl from Dusseldorf who i subrented to and she eventually decided to go to this Art School and met Tal and they were together for some time. Just to show that Florence was a small town .
.
Joan and Fred and their dog Sofie went to live in a lovely appartment on via Santo Spirito . It was on the top floor and the steps were from the 1500's and it was a steep climb. Right next to them was the Mariotti family: Mario mariotti was an artist who was well known for his "Animani" or coloured hands which depicted animals. He had a lovely studio Atelier off Borgo San Jacobo where we went to have a look at his ceramics and other projects. Mario also worked at the Accademia delle Belle Arti and once in a while we met around town and he would offer me a coffee. I will always remember him when he illuminated my mind saying that Art "work" was like any other work and that it wasn't to be Art for Art's sake! As a student of literature i was continuing with painting as well and he was kind enough to send some of my works along with his students art works to decorate the walls of a restraunt in LA. He was well known in Florence for his community art exhibits. One of the main places his work can be found even today is the cafe Ricchi on the Santo Spirito Square (on the left hand side looking at the church). He had had other events in the square and was well known in the area.
Sofie's Mis Adventure in Ferragosto!
Sofie was Joan's dog and was pretty old by the time i met them. One year while living in via Santo Spirito, Joan and Fred had decided to go to the US for the summer and had left Sofie the dog with a student who was new in town and didn't speak the language. I was called and told that the dog sitter had run away because she couldn't understand why all the shops were closed on the 15 of August. (Ferragosto is a traditionally Roman holiday were all activity comes to a halt on the 15th of August) ....The reason must have been more complex than that and she must have had some kind of crisis. She had left all of a sudden without telling any one and had locked Sofie in the appartment catching the first flight back home. Fortunately the Mariotties had been home and hadn't left for their summer holidays and had managed to rescue Sofie out from a back window.
I was not used to looking after dogs but i was the official dog sitter for a while and Sofie got on very well with my two cats and we were a happy family for the ten days she was with me. I discovered that walking a dog is a sure way of making friends around town !
The ponte vecchio water colour , was an image i reproduced many times and in recent times The Pope said :"Build Brigdes" .....
"Serpiolle" 1990
Robin and Sarina 1992
This was part of a series of watercolours which i did in 1991/92 .... some of which were sold to a private person in the city of Prato .... others were bought from me from Ms Blanca Huber in Frankfurt am Mein 2017
Getting to know Silvia / Lucia /Jacopo/ Pascal/ Teresa/ Miguel/ in Viareggio
Lucia was Silvia's young friend , she was 27 and a university student . She lived up in a hill in the city of Luca and she wanted to find her path in life. She went to the UK and has been living in London now for many years. She is below on the left . Lucia told me about her family and we talked a lot on different issues.
Pascal at his studies
Silvia and Her mother (with her nurse)
The cat Pipies
The cats Mooshies
This is a Painting of Mooshie which is now in Scotland , Edinburgh
Via Fiesolana Atelier / Studio/ Shop / Gallery
The door in 1998 when i first started
with my first client 1998
!
San Miniato card
Fletcher Boot form New York 2000
Fletcher was a good artist , we worked on the Dolphyns and several other paintings together. Fletcher was a student in Florence for some months and i used to hire students to help me in the studio. I felt very special when she brought her parents and grandparents to see the studio in 1999/2000 when they were visiting her.
My assistants used to work on the basics and i would put the finishing touch on the images. I had many people from different nationalities , mostly women , some of whom came to work with their babies . Most of all i needed people to stay in the shop for sales purposes (while i was out and about) .
The Dolphins
Room with a view painting
"East and West Womanhood" 45x25 acrylic on paper curtsy of Ms Huber
Recently in the exhibition "Dignity through The Arts" in The Anglican Church In Florence
Pilar was an assistant from the Canary Islands
Palazzo vecchio card
Myself at work! i made watercolours and from these produced cards ....
card of San Miniato
card of the Synagogue
image of the facade
Vaheeba was an assistant from Algeria
People in the city
Santo spirito square card
santo spirito card
a jappanese assistant
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