Golbanou Moghaddas: From Water to Water
Reception: Friday, January 25, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
The San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Bay Area artist Golbanou Moghaddas at Café Valor. From Water to Water tells a tale of a slow journey that begins by the Caspian Sea, near where the artist was born in Iran, and winds its way to the Pacific Ocean, near her current home. Fascinated by the poetic nature of how gazing at a far-off horizon line can make all bodies of water appear vast and infinite, Moghaddas’ has shaped a narrative for this exhibition that is both personal and universal.
Moghaddas’ storytelling is enriched by metaphors that relate to philosophy, poetry, and existential beliefs. While the complex visual components of her work are delicately rendered and presented in a style that draws inspiration from Persian miniature paintings.
She states, “Rather than the political, I aim to emphasize the lyrical. Through art I have found a tie to my existence; I know that this journey is never meant to end. I see events of life, like transparent layers laid upon one another, with some moments naturally becoming more significant. I embrace those moments and etch their stories onto the plate. I tell stories because I exist in them.”
About the artist:
Golbanou Moghaddas (b. 1980) is an Iranian Narrative Visual Artist based in San Francisco. She has an MA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, UK. In 2012, an MFA Fellowship from San Francisco Art Institute brought her to California. She was awarded the Best of British Illustration award 2011, and is the illustrator of The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, published by Granta Publication, UK, and Chicago Press, USA. In the Bay Area, she has worked with Master Printer Paul Mullowney, She has been awarded is a Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award, Manhattan Graphics Center Scholarship, and Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award. She exhibits her work internationally, and is currently an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, and an Affiliate Artist at Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito.
Image credit: Golbanou Moghaddas, The Way, 2016 (detail). Etching printed on Japanese Gampi paper Chine-collé.