Maryam Safajoo
Difficulty of the Journey
2021

About the Item

Maryam Safajoo is a Tufts University alumni, a Persian American painter based in the United States and graduated with an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston. Her paintings narrate the stories of the contemporary situation of the systematic persecution of the Iranian Baha’i community after the 1979 Iranian revolution. She explores cultural behavior and responses toward violence and human rights violations to encourage conversations that challenge the lack of representation of ethical behavior, people and voices in our global consciousness while highlighting the necessity of freedom. “I experienced this oppression myself in Iran. I remember the day in the early morning when government security forces burst into my home, ransacked it and took my father to prison; my younger sister was crying on her way to school. Later my sister was denied access to university and because of her quest to understand why, was placed in solitary confinement.” These are only a few examples of what Baha’is around Iran have and are currently experiencing. Her paintings narrate these stories which are a result of her conversations and interviews with the people who were near or in these actual events. Many of the incidents she depicts only exist in the memory of those who experienced them and have no pictorial existence. In many cases if visual records did exist, they have been confiscated by the Iranian authorities in raids of homes. Her depictions are often the first time these events have taken visual form. She records the details of this history. For example, the shoes, clothes, artifacts, and environments seen in her paintings are very close to those that were there in the event. Her works are academic in nature and all these paintings are based on qualitative interviews or archival research. It could even be looked at as a form of visual ethnography which captures experiences of an entire community which have had no prior visual existence.

Creator:
Maryam Safajoo (Iranian)
Creation Year:
2021
Dimensions:
Height: 12 in (30.48 cm)Width: 16 in (40.64 cm)
Medium:
Canvas,Oil
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
21st Century
Framing:
Framing Options Available
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New Orleans, LA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU105215065032

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