Naghmeh Sharifi
Souvenirs to Nowhere
Souvenirs to Nowhere is a collection of 22 paintings that show fragments of Sharifi’s daily life. Through them, a new kind of intimacy is formed that’s tinged with melancholy, deepened by the time spent at home since the beginning of the pandemic. The series invites us to reconsider the elements around us by paying special attention to them, focusing on the contours of the objects we’re familiar with. Each small wooden panel is first covered with a Prussian blue paint. Various solvents are used to dissolve the applied pigment, and the artist then begins to work in the negative to reveal the subject matter depicted. The work displays a certain tension between painting and photography. The positive image created by working in the negative recalls the process itself; the choice of grid layout recalls Instagram feeds or image galleries; while the shade of blue recalls the cyanotype process, wherein a bluish photographic image is created by placing an object on photosensitive paper.