HERE, THERE ARE OTHERS
MARYAM KEYHANI
12 OCT - 9 NOV 2016
The Mine presented Here, There Are Others, a new series of works by Iranian-Canadian artist Maryam Keyhani, in her first solo exhibition.
Using handmade brushes, combs, epoxy, plaster, paint, foam, headpieces, and other spontaneously chosen materials, Maryam Keyhani presented a collection of makeshift objects, inspired by her own experiences of trauma and anxiety. Both beguiling and disturbing, the surreal figurines question the relationship between perception and identity. What costumes do we bear in times of inner trauma?
Each object acts as a “self-portrait” of the artist’s own divided self. “Our internal turmoils can become so complex they create different characters within one body,” says Keyhani, who describes the exhibition as a “dinner of misfits.”
At this fantasy dinner party, guests sit in eerie silence. Neither dead nor alive, the doll-like creatures long to escape their own decadent appearances; dressed in disheveled pastel meringues and sleek geometrical shapes, each more extravagant and surreal than the last.
Keyhani, who is based between Toronto and Berlin, also brings into question her own role as an artist and creator of objects. Here, she repurposed the brush – the traditional tool for the removal of dirt, to explore her own subconscious. “In this sense, the artist is no longer sullen but happy with her disposition,” says writer and peer Tara Aghdashloo. “And what comes from this practice of exploration, creation, and abstraction is an invitation to be faceless, strange, and fantastic all the same.”
