Changing colours of light

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian is a living legend who has won worldwide respect for her art and her lifelong dedication to preserving her country's art and craft heritage. The artist, who turns 87 this year, was one of the first Iranians to travel to the United States to study. She made her way to New York in 1945, determined to study art and undeterred by the Second World War. Trained at Parsons school of design and the Art Students League of New York, she came of age in the heyday of the New York art scene and Abstract Expressionism, and counted Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock among her friends. But despite having studied and lived abroad for years, Farmanfarmaian's art is deeply rooted in her own culture and heritage.

For more than four decades, the artist has been experimenting with mirror mosaics, reverse glass painting and Islamic geometry to create dazzling two- and three-dimensional mirror-mosaic artworks that effortlessly combine traditional Persian decorative art and modern 20th-century abstract art.

In her latest exhibition, Kaleidoscope, Farmanfarmaian has taken the interplay of shape, colour and line in her work to a new level by using identical geometric panels to create larger mirror-mosaic compositions. The individual panels can be arranged in various ways to create different kaleidoscopic variations of every composition.

As always, the artist's work is visually stunning and deeply spiritual. The thousands of tiny mirrors, cut by hand and painstakingly glued to a plastered wooden base, twinkle as they catch the light, while bits of reverse painted glass in bright shades of red, blue and green add vitality and emotion to the arrangement. The repetitive geometric patterns, steeped in tradition and Sufi symbolism, draw you in to explore a complex, layered world within. The artworks change continuously as they reflect the changing light, the movement around them and the fragmented images of people looking at them, making every viewing a different and ephemeral experience. The tiny mirrors make the viewers a part of the artwork, playfully inviting them to move around and explore different angles. At the same time, they deconstruct worldly illusions and mirror the fragility and transience of life itself.

The new twist she has added to this series opens up even more possibilities of interpretation, participation and contemplation — because not only can the individual panels be arranged to create different shapes and forms but the negative space between them can also take on various interesting shapes.

Farmanfarmaian's art has been influenced by her interest in traditional Iranian art and architecture. She was among the first to recognise the importance of preserving folk arts that were threatened by modernisation and has travelled to remote corners of her country to collect decorative panels, door and window frames from traditional houses marked for demolition, primitive reverse glass paintings used to decorate nomadic tents, and hand-carved silver jewellery and horse trappings of the Turkoman tribes.

Elements from these collections filtered into her work and led her to experiment with reverse glass painting. The inspiration for her mirror and glass mosaics also came from the decorations used in Iranian architecture since the 18th century, when mirrors imported from Europe arrived broken and were salvaged by craftsmen to create mosaics similar to traditional Iranian tile mosaics.

"As an artist, one must always say something new. I have made work that refers to geometric lines and mirrorwork for so long but I always try to do it in a new way, bringing in architectural ideas or making it minimal. I hate to repeat the same thing. Maybe I am not doing it better but I am always trying to do it new. I will always work with this medium, because this is what I love doing. But I constantly try to further push the envelope of what is possible. In this series, I have visualised certain configurations for each work that reflect possibilities," the artist says.

But in her typical unassuming and practical way, she adds: "If people cannot afford to buy a new work for different rooms in their house, they can put the individual panels in separate rooms."

Along with her latest mirror works, the artist is also exhibiting her floral drawings. For centuries, gardens have been a central feature in Persian social life and cultural imagery — and they have been a great source of inspiration for Farmanfarmaian.

The artist discovered her ability to draw accurate representations of flowers in childhood and over the years has filled hundreds of sketchbooks with drawings of garden scenes, flowers, trees, bees, shells and leaves, done in French pen, China ink, pencil and brush.

Her drawings reflect fluid, easy brushstrokes that grow across the page like the organic forms themselves, and some are also done in pointillist style.

"I love gardens and have always been drawn to them and to the natural beauty of blossoms and trees. I study the flowers in my garden, gathering them in bunches and looking at single flowers till I go to sleep. And then when I wake up in the morning, I have the flower in my mind and can draw it from my heart, without looking.

"I know all the flowers by name, the ones that bloom in early spring, those of summer, those that open slowly and those that fade quickly. For me, the garden is an endless place of inspiration and discovery," Farmanfarmaian says.

- Jyoti Kalsi is a UAE-based art enthusiast.
Kaleidoscope will run at The Third Line gallery until February 24.