In essence, Afnan's work is about memory, and her images of eroding traces, faces and places linger long in the memory.--Rose Issa, from the preface
Maliheh Afnan's work appears as a relic of an older civilization or an archaeological excavation into the collective psyche. The delicacy of Persian miniatures and manuscripts, which she remembers from childhood, is mirrored in her love for intimate scale and the refined beauty of muted colour.
Calligraphy plays an important role: images appear that suggest the written word. Works on paper and tablets of painted plaster are reminiscent of ancient, almost obliterated texts, and, like palimpsests, retain only some vestige of literal meaning and an impression of human contact.
Afnan has absorbed both Middle Eastern and Western influences. She has looked towards such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jean Dubuffet, and Paul Klee, and shares an affinity with the American artist Mark Tobey, who helped arrange the first European exhibition of her work in 1971.
Maliheh Afnan obtained an MFA from the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, in 1962. Her work is represented in the Institute du Monde Arabe in Paris and in the British Museum in London. Afnan most recently exhibited at the Martin Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin (Taswir: Pictorial Mappings of Modernity & Islam).
Rose Issa is a freelance curator, specializing in contemporary visual arts and films from the Arab world and Iran.
About the Author: Maliheh Afnan: Maliheh Afnan obtained an MA in Fine Arts from the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, in 1962. She has had twelve solo exhibitions and twenty-five group exhibitions around the world, and two retrospectives at England & Co., London, 2000 and 2006. Her work is represented in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and in the British Museum in London, where in 2006 she was included in the exhibition Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East. Afnan most recently exhibited at the Martin Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin (Taswir: Pictorial Mappings of Modernity & Islam). Rose Issa: Rose Issa is a freelance curator, specialised in contemporary visual arts and films from the Arab world and Iran. Also by the same editor: Chant Avedissian: Cairo Stencils (Saqi, 978-0-86356-080-4), Shadi Ghadirian (Saqi, 978-0-86356-638-7). John Berger: John Berger is one of the pre-eminant art critics of our time, and a respected novelist and painter. He was born in England and has lived in France since the mid-1970's. He is the author of the influential book 'Ways of Seeing', and aside from writings on art and photography is well known for his essays on sociology and politics, and for his creative fiction. His novel, 'G', won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his most recent work, 'From A to X', was long listed for the 2008 Booker Prize. Lutz Becker: Lutz Becker was born in Berlin and now lives in London, where he works as a painter, curator and filmmaker.He is an expert on the art of the Russian and Soviet avant-garde and on Italian Futurism. As a curator he has worked with Tate Modern on 'Century City: Moscow' (2001)and with The Hayward Gallery on 'Art and Power' (1995).
