shshshshshshshshshsh-out / samieh shahcheraghi
during the groot rotterdams atelier weekend (graw) – on saturday 21 and sunday 22 september 2024 – stage ocw presents work by iranian visual artist samieh shahcheraghi for the second year in a row. _samieh was a guest in the ocw studio space last month. _she concludes her work period with a presentation during graw
samieh will not only exhibit her sketchbooks in the studio building at the drievriendenstraat. _on both days she will also present a twenty-minute live performance at 13 and 16 hrs, in which she will read poetry in persian while drawing, to present the drawing as a voice of the words. _she applies her way of drawing objects in different perspectives to position words and write poems
for her visual work, samieh uses specific qualities of drawing such as lines, dots and the contrast between light and dark. _in addition, she applies a wide range of treatments to her material by scratching, crumpling, piercing, tearing, reassembling torn parts with a needle and thread, and varying the pen pressure while drawing. _the drawings form an intermediate station for samieh. _they provide her with the vocabulary, which she can then convert into an idiom for wider application in her poetry, music, film and performance
Why do not I truly cry? Why do not I truly scream? Why am I truly desperate?
Maybe desperation is the lethargy in the lines. Maybe it is about drawing lines with a bent body. Maybe the protrusion of lines shows desperation. Maybe there’s no need to express the word “desperation” and the lines, with desperate hands, will complete their own work. Maybe the orange’s lethargy in staying within the bowl is a sign of desperation. It’s nearing the point of falling out of the bowl. Maybe that point. Maybe the eruption of lines from inside to outside. Outside the bowl is also a place for the orange. Outside the room. Outside my sketchbook. Not being in the sketchbook doesn’t mean the orange is completely absent. It is somewhere outside. Desperate!Desperation of Lines:
I still don’t know what the desperation of lines is, and I don’t want to know—it just comes to mind. I fold my body and loosen my hands to show desperate lines. But there’s no need for this game. My body is fully present in front of this sketchbook. Is it not enough? I think the orange is falling out of the bowl. I fill the bowl with oranges and confront myself with the desperation of an orange that is falling out of the bowl. I confront myself with that point from the bowl. The point between orange and the edge of bowl. The point of falling out! Maybe desperation is a kind of pouring down. I don’t know if the orange pouring out of the bowl means it’s desperation or not. Maybe pouring down and being thrown out of the bowl has another meaning.Stiff lines!
Lines in the process of being thrown!
Lines without breath!
Lines pouring down and having no strength to return!With the state I’m in today—loose, hanging hands and a numb body—I try to draw the orange. But still, I don’t know if the desperation of my hands means the desperation of the lines or not. And I don’t know if the desperate lines affect the drawing of the orange or not. I don’t know if it’s the lines that show the orange as desperate or the position of the orange in the bowl. Does the position of the orange even matter? Maybe the position of the orange in the bowl doesn’t matter in desperation. Maybe it depends on my hands in my body. And the orange is just an excuse.