Footnotes

A RARE EARLY PAINT AND CEMENT COMPOSITION BY PARVANEH ETEMADI

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, Dubai
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 2018

"Basically, an artist is a revolutionary, revolution lies in the artist's essence. Revolting against old structures, modifying them in the hope of reproducing them. Certain arts have a consumption period and are gradually overthrown by the passage of time and the change of circumstances."
- Parvaneh Etemadi

Parvaneh Etemadi is undoubtedly one of Iran's most accomplished and original modern artists. Born Iran, Etemadi grew up in Birjand, and completed studies at the Fine Art College of Tehran University 1967. She studied under Bahman Mohassess and has exhibited both nationally and internationally since 1969.


During the first period of her artistic activity, probably due to her collaboration and sympathy with the same group of artists who founded Ta'la'r-e Iran and under the influence of her academic teachings, she appeared as an abstract painter. Parvaneh's adhered to the young group of progressive innovative painters of the Ghandriz gallery who believed that the real vocation of art lies in abstraction and thus evaded figuration. Etemadi's work, however, would gradually encompass figurative elements as she developed a "third way" which did not give in to pure abstraction


Following initial exhibitions at the Ghandriz gallery, Etemadi started the second phase of her artistic practice in 1970, exemplified by the present painting. These "cement paintings" were a series of works that were executed on a rough cement base, comprised mostly of semi-abstracted figures that employed a minimal use of line and colour. The use of cement is in keeping with Etemadi radical agenda which asserts contemporary art as a revolutionary upheaval against classical modes of representation, through the use of a modern construction material Etemadi harmonizes both the compositional and stylistic elements of this revolutionary artistic agenda.