Maliheh Afnan: Traces, Faces and Places

"In essence, Afnan's work is about memory, and her images of eroding traces, faces and places linger long in the memory."--Rose Issa, from the preface

Maliheh Afnan's work appears "as a relic of an older civilization or an archaeological excavation into the collective psyche. The delicacy of Persian miniatures and manuscripts, which she remembers from childhood, is mirrored in her love for intimate scale and the refined beauty of muted colour."

Calligraphy plays an important role: images appear that suggest the written word. Works on paper and tablets of painted plaster are reminiscent of ancient, almost obliterated texts, and, like palimpsests, retain only some vestige of literal meaning and an impression of human contact.

Afnan has absorbed both Middle Eastern and Western influences. She has looked towards such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jean Dubuffet, and Paul Klee, and shares an affinity with the American artist Mark Tobey, who helped arrange the first European exhibition of her work in 1971.

Maliheh Afnan obtained an MFA from the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, in 1962. Her work is represented in the Institute du Monde Arabe in Paris and in the British Museum in London. Afnan most recently exhibited at the Martin Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin (Taswir: Pictorial Mappings of Modernity & Islam).

Rose Issa is a freelance curator, specializing in contemporary visual arts and films from the Arab world and Iran.