Leila Heller Gallery and Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art (ETNFA) are pleased to present two posthumous New York exhibitions celebrating the life and career of internationally renowned, recently deceased, Iranian artist Farideh Lashai (1944 – 2013). On view, from April 3 to May 7, at ETNFA will be works such as El Amal, 2011-2012, Le Dejeuner au Park-e-Mellat, 2007-2011, among others. An extended version of Lashai’s work Rabbit in Wonderland, 2010, will be on view at Leila Heller Gallery from April 4 to May 2. A joint-gallery catalogue, featuring an essay by Negar Azimi, Senior Editor of Bidoun magazine, will be published to accompany the exhibitions.
Through her dynamic paintings and videos, Farideh Lashai, who began exhibiting her work internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions in 1968, created a compelling Iranian aesthetic in contemporary Middle Eastern art, inspiring artists at home and abroad. During her career, Lashai captivated viewers with her works, which seem to inhabit an ephemeral reality akin to the actual shifts of events through time and space. Lashai’s amalgamated use of layered mediums such as video, paintings, and sound, brings to life transient movements of iconic figures and other characters projected upon striking paintings of nature. Her intricate use of projected videos and sound upon unique paintings function as a cohesive whole and awaken a universal sense of nostalgia.