Bahareh Navabi | "The Theater of life": +2

+2 presents the latest body of works by Bahareh Navabi. Titled “The Theatre of Life”, will adorn the walls of +2 from June 10 to July 1, 2022. This is the artist's fifth solo exhibition with Dastan Gallery. Her previous solo shows, “Memories of a Pulse” (2013) and “Balance of Reflection” (2014), were at Dastan’s Basement and “Monochromatic Silence” (2016) and “UN ÉCHO - 13:13” (2018) at +2. The show features Bahare Navabi's 23 colored-pencil and acrylic-on-tracing-paper paintings.

Frames of Navabi turn into a stage where she directs scenes from her own life. "All the world's a stage", proclaims the Bard, "and all the men and women merely players". Bahareh Navabi's self-portraits – her one-person show – are void of set design elements. Her character appears without a reference point on a plain, monochromatic surface within the frame. She adds various shapes (floating multilaterals, flowers, a scarf) to the frame or effaces parts of her body to highlight the absence of other role players. She keeps her work open to interpretation and contemplation, which allows the viewer to idenify with the story and the protagonist though her/his own experience. It is as if the viewer, who is playing his/her own role, is looking in the mirror of Navabi's frame. Paintings of Bahareh Navabi, drawn on tracing paper using pencil and acrylic, appear to be figurative at first. A closer look, however, reveals their abstract capacity. The visual narrative, like the life itself, is a collage of different and at times contradictory events.

Bahareh Navabi (b. 1985, Tehran) studied under Farideh Lashai and followed the abstractionist approach in her work. Following her graduation with an MA from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, her focus shifted to simplified portraiture inspired by the abstractionist tradition. Her works have appeared in numerous galleries, biennales, and art fairs, including Art Dubai (2016 and 2017).