Review by Roya Jahanbin

Maryam Hashemi’s Paintings

The Journey of a Girl to Womanhood

I spent hours looking at her works following her tireless strive to spit back the entrapped feelings of those years living under the iron law of veil and its harsh repressive influence on a growing up girl with flying imagination.

Maryam’s painting between 2001 & 2006 shows how she throws back on the canvas that was forced down her throat while dipping her brushes in other styles. She is not a depressive painter, she does not simply stomach what is forced on her. The “Family Day Out” is a universal teenage agony with or without veil. Meanwhile, she comes up with beautiful paintings of women from different minorities in Iran especially the “Tehrani”. The “Skateboarder” is an innocent portrait of injustice in a male dominated culture. And her Empress or Mary is sad and perhaps the Parrot knows it all!

During the above period, the works of 2002 are very different. This is the time just before her exodus to London. Her gold fish are losing colour and in one occasion they are pale and hanging upside down. When the world is ugly she makes her characters wear goggles. It is not enough and something has to change. The paintings are the story of the trapped angel and you could feel the frustration of the young soul wishing for a breathe of fresh air that could be hard to come by in the contemporary Iran especially if you are young, female and an artist!

Then there is a lull in her creative activities or they are not yet available for public viewing! We do not see much of her work from 2006 to 2009 while perhaps she is reorienting herself in her new home and going through a period of just absorbing. And suddenly she bursts with a new sexuality in her paintings in 2009. Her gold fish are back in full colour. Her goggled creatures are beautiful mermaids happily swimming about. This is the first time we see women with full breasts and curves in her works.

She looks back at what made her furious with a conquering grin and leaves the ghosts behind the window. They cannot hurt her anymore. She mocks the politics of the day in her “Circus” and she is on the road home.

She arrives at the sweet home in peace maybe younger than many of her generation in 2010. She is now a woman and you could witness that in her self portrait in “Sweet Surrender”. The interesting thing for me is the fact that her “Arrival” is painted recently. Maryam has a great capacity to hold her feelings long enough inside that when she talks about it she could be as calm as her smile in the painting. She is definitely home now!

Her very recent work “Motherships” is my favourite with her refreshing style and sense of freedom it conveys. This is Maryam to come. Hold on to your seats as she is going to blow you up soon!!

The Exhibition of her works at the Broadway gallery in Barking is open till until 19^th 2010.

The address is:

The Broadway, Broadway, Barking IG11 7LS.

Tel: 020 8507 5610

www.thebroadwaybarking.com

www.maryamhashemi.com

maryamhashemi.blogspot.com/

Roya Jahanbin

22 October 2010

Review by Ali Afshar

Maryam observes life surrounding her , absorbs it and with no prejudice translates it to images.

The result is just astonishing.

She does not follow any fashion or art movements past or present; she is unique and true to her inner feelings.

Maryam's works at times are drawn meticulously with an incredible attention to detail and a painstaking craftsmanship and at other with fast brush strokes.Sometimes there are happy vivid colours and at times dark and sad colours, but the work is always beautiful, not decorative, the sense of space and over all balance is just right.

The ideas and colours seem to form as she progresses with no preset format. There is always a premiere plan, which is the main subject ,then she proceeds to fill the background and surrounding areas with minor and secondary images and icons which at first glance one has the impression that they are irrelevant to the main subject but this is where the viewer has to look very carefully to understand Maryam and to get an insight into her complex thoughts about life and herself.

Every image in the picture is carefully thought through and placed exactly where she wants it.
She unconsciously opens and gives herself up. She is full of life, happy and sweet; She makes her comments to life with a bitter sweet and innocent look. Life is not always sweet, there are bitter and difficult moments too, but Maryam does not succumb, she loves and enjoy it and conquers life.

She is in control.

In Some works there are images of freaks and the amputees, but again they are tender and lovable people and there are no ugly or hateful images.

Her work is a diary of her life ,a documentation of inner thoughts and feelings. The remembrance of things which have touched her thoughts and her young and rich life.

Presence of women and Hejab in many of her works is not a political statement or because it has become fashionable to do so. She is only documenting and reviewing it since she has been directly touched by it and has tasted its power .

The present and her wishes for the future can also be found in her works.She is expressing herself by the means of her pencils and brushes and she is doing it an a fantastic way

Ali Afshar
March 2009