Mahsa Tehrani

b. Tehran, Iran.

Mahsa Tehrani creates utopian worlds of contemporary life that stand in stark contrast to the realities women face in Iran, where, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the hijab has been compulsory. The most recent wave of protests in the country has been named after another woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested and beaten to death for “improperly” wearing her hijab. This grim and pervasive reality is the opposite of the idealized utopia depicted in Tehrani’s paintings.

Many of Tehrani’s landscapes evoke the imagery of Hieronymus Bosch’s iconic The Garden of Earthly Delights. In her own world, women (and men) are free from oppression, living in an imagined realm of beauty and possibility. It is no coincidence that several of her works carry evocative titles such as The Desire of Leaving, The Desire of Being, and The Promise of Happiness. Despite the vibrant, utopian settings, the figures in her paintings are dressed in plain, uniform-like greyish-white clothing, which gives them the appearance of prisoners or hospital patients who have managed to escape.

Tehrani’s work also draws on the tradition of Persian miniatures, a genre that flourished between the 13th and 16th centuries. Persian miniatures often depict figures in lush, fantastical landscapes, using bright, pure colors. As art historian Arthur Upham Pope noted, Persian miniatures are influenced by Sufism and transcend time and space, granting them a spiritual and otherworldly quality. This transcendental quality is similarly present in Tehrani’s work, creating a sense of escape and freedom from the constraints of reality.