Agustin Lara

Gallery Review 2

April 28^th, 2016

Art 350s

The Erosion of Memory

            Today I went to Bahareh Farahani’s Master of Fine Art Thesis Exhibition, and this is the second time I’ve been to one of her exhibitions.  This exhibition was definitely better than her first one. She seems to be pushing herself more and coming up with beautiful works.  He tar and acrylic paintings reminded me of the ones she showed in her previous exhibition, except these didn’t seem as dark.  I say that because she told us the tar in her paintings was a symbol for Iran and the struggles she faced living there.  These paintings still contain tar however there are other symbols in the paintings that generate a happy feeling as you look at them.   the pieces I really enjoyed were her laser cut wax an paper light sculptures.  These were works that I hadn’t seen from her and they blew me away.  It was all handmade paper and the aesthetic that the light created was amazing.  These pieces completely took over the dark space they were in and seemed to capture and entrance the audience.   The only works I didn’t seem to be interested in were her handmade paper installations.  These works were called Trailing Ivy, and consisted of handmade paper, vellum paper, acrylic, tar, encaustic wax, and resin on a wood panel.  If I’m being brutally honest it just seemed like paper with a bunch of glue poured on it.  It didn’t evoke any emotions and didn’t do a good job of keeping me interested for longer than a few seconds per piece. I would’ve liked to see more acrylic or tar, or something that just made these works pop out a bit more.