Kimia Pishdadian
“My mother was my first country, the first place I ever lived.”
— Nayyirah Waheed
As I was working on my paintings in the corner of my small studio in Paris, I found myself so close to where I come from, my origin Iran and the Iranian women in different parts of my country, whom are knitting rugs in their small houses for many years. As I was far from my country, I felt new attachments to our traditions and closeness to our craft. I am living a very different life compared to them, a contemporary, modern, independent life in Europe, I am knitting rugs, which are very different from what comes to mind when we are talking about the Persian rugs. I use the exactly same technique of weaving the Persian rugs, same Horizontal looms and Vertical looms and same knots.
But the element that changes everything in my rugs, is the material. Similar to the great artists of the Fiber art, my works are inspired from handicrafts, and resembling to the works one of the greatest artists of Fiber art, Sheila Hicks, color is one of the integral parts of my work. I am a contemporary human, with contemporary problems and concerns in life, each of my rugs, focuses on some of these concerns such as sexism, women and man labor, ecologic problems and consumerism.
I chose plastique because I see it as the most contemporary material in our life, and because I can represent many of my concerns with it, such as ecological problems and consumerism. The base of my work is plastique ropes and I knit with different kind of plastic material such as rope, electrical wire, plastique bags, etc. I am joining self taught craft and immortal plastic together, as a symbolic hope of immortality for the vernacular art. Ropes also represent the masculinity as we see them in stereotypical works such as fishing and construction. Textile art and weaving is a representation of feminine expression. By bringing them together it represents our limitless contemporary life without sexism.
However, my rugs look chaotic, the base of the rug have been knitted on an ordered and checkered pattern skeleton. I want it to remind how to be free with all the rules and limitations. The electric wires are also representing our life, they talk about all the connections we have with each other along all the separation and our loneliness.
Kimia Pishdadian is an incredible Iranian painter whose works have been featured in exhibitions throughout Iran and the UK. Heavily influenced by the Persian and Oriental art influences within her home country, she composes paintings that showcase an abundance of colour, convey messages of tolerance and acceptance and exalt the beauty of culture. Her watercolour and acrylic paintings ultimately seek to reflect and promote a sense of harmony.