Education
2006 Diploma. Tehran High School of Fine Arts. Tehran, Iran.
2012 BA. Graphic Design. Azad University. Tehran, Iran.
Solo/Duo Exhibitions
2024 “Hidden Murmurs”. Bavan Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran. In collaboration with The Mine
2023 “Wrinkles Wrapped in Years: Three Zones of Experience”. Duo with Minoo Yalsohrabi. Electric Room (INSIDE, despite). Tehran, Iran.
2021 “Under Preceding Trees”. Soo Contemporary. Tehran, Iran.
2020 “Bygone Glory”. Soo Contemporary. Tehran, Iran.
2019 “Lie, Lay, Lure”. Homa Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2016 “The Heritage of the Moor”. Mohsen Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2014 “Flower? Flower”. Homa Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2010 “Coranus”. Ashian-e Naghsh-o Mehr Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
Group Exhibitions
2024 “Eco(ed) Visions”. The Mine. Dubai, UAE.
2024 “Timeless”, Bavan Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran.
2023 “Landschaft”. Galerie Khoshbakht, Cologne, Germany.
2023 “Another Birth”. The Mine. Dubai, UAE.
2023 “For Life”. Aaran Projects. Tehran, Iran.
2022 “Ode to Spring”. Aaran Projects. Tehran, Iran.
2022 “Garden of Dreams”. Soo Contemporary. Tehran, Iran.
2021 “Birds”. Soo Contemporary. Tehran, Iran.
2021 “Remembering-Being”. Soo Contemporary. Tehran, Iran.
2020 “Rally”. Soo Contemporary. Tehran, Iran.
2020 “Ten Days like Flower”. Choom Art Gallery. Anzali, Iran.
2019 “Art Will Tell”. 7 Art Gallery. Istanbul, Turkey.
2018 “Montakhab-e Nasl-e No: 10th Edition”. Shirin Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2018. “Mind & Sensation”. Pardis Mellat Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2017 “The List 2”. O Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2016 “Ballet in The Fresh Air”. A Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2015 “Iran On Your Mind”. Online Exhibition. www.theliteroom.com. Basel, Switzerland.
2015 “Summer Collection”. Homa Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2015 “Merci Poesi Festival”. Gothenburg, Sweden.
2015 “Drawing Week 3”. Homa Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2014 “Good News from Iran 2”. Pasinger Fabrik. Munich, Germany.
2014 “Salvation Gaza”. Niavaran Cultural Center. Tehran, Iran.
2014 “Gol”. Khorshid Gallery. Lavasan, Iran.
2013 “Good News from Iran”. Pages Gallery. Geneva, Switzerland.
2013 “Montakhab-e Nasl-e No: 7th Edition”. Ahwaz Museum of Contemporary Art. Ahwaz, Iran.
2013 “Montakhab-e Nasl-e No: 7th Edition”. Shirin Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2012 “Tiny Tableaus”. Aria Art Gallery. Tehran, Iran.
2012 “Oxygen”. Iranian Artists’ Forum. Tehran, Iran.
Art Fairs
2024 Kiaf. Bavan Art Gallery. Seoul, South Korea.
2021 Liste ShowTime. Soo Conemprary. Basel, Switzerland.
2015 World Art Dubai. Mottahedan Projects. Dubai, UAE.
CV
Salé Sharifi
b. 1989 Tehran, Iran
Tehran-based artist Salé Sharifi works primarily with painting and notions of visibility, history and memory. His works eschew traditional portraiture and instead zoom in on the lush backdrops which featured Qajar monuments. Although he references Qajar miniature painting, his works comment on a certain hybridity through Occidental influences that occurred after that time during the Safavid era.
Drawing from Persian gardens, his paintings have evolved from precise depictions of flowers, plants, and fountains into abstract, almost three-dimensional perspectives, as if behind translucent glass. The airbrushed gardens he depicts — Golestan, Hafezieh, Negarestan — index real places tinged with nostalgia, like a fading remembrance. As these images recede from vision, Sharifi adds thick curly marks to the surface of his paintings to remind the viewer that art is illusion and artifice. Just as a garden is landscaped and moulded, at times with flowers and trees imported from Europe, so too is the artist’s tool and medium.
The singular brushstrokes represent the deconstruction of an image in layers, adding both texture and an element of time. As a gesture, they mark how a painter might test his color swatches before a picture is formed, while the gardens themselves are an attempt to hold onto an image and a history that is on the verge of disappearing. It’s a radical take on Impressionism as a process — that is, painting from nature but not bound by it.
- Text by Nadine Khalil