B.1989 Tehran, Iran

Salé Sharifi (B. 1989) is an artist passionate about painting on paper. Political and social history, literature, and commemoration are the original themes of his works up to the present day. His paintings’ expressiveness can be seen through a gentle navigation of his work, where historical hints reveal themselves. His influences draw from traditional techniques such as Qajar miniature painting, and thus his works intrinsically carry an Iranian essence. For his series of paintings exhibited in After Birth, Sale takes inspiration from Persian gardens, taking the garden as an analogy for a transient space where memory and history passes through. In his stylistic approach, reminiscent of bokeh in photography, his paintings become blurry and distorted, pointing out the lossiness and ephemeral nature of our memories. The ambiguity carried in the artist’s work here encapsulates the notion proposed by the exhibition of an indeterminate space of becoming where hope can emerge.