Introduction
Maximal Miniatures features the work of 13 leading contemporary Iranian artists who reimagine the rich visual tradition of the Persian miniature genre through inventive formal techniques, including experimentations with scale, color, composition, figuration, and abstraction. As an art form, the Persian miniature is grounded in a relationship between text and image in which paintings refer to poetic verses, stories from the Book of Kings (Shahnameh), important battles, heroes, and heroines, using a combination of calligraphic lines, architectural forms, and human figures.
Building upon the miniature’s transnational legacy, the featured artists cross multiple boundaries in their work to focus on questions of identity, gender, ecology, diaspora, and the mythologies that form past and present lives. These new interpretations create images that transcend representation and enter into the realm of the surreal, abstract, and otherworldly. By expanding the miniature form beyond its position as an illustrative work tied to the illumination of manuscripts, these artists point to the aesthetic possibilities of the miniature genre and create new maximal works across painting, sculpture, and works on paper.
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About the Artists
Reza Derakshani, Parinaz Eleish, Amir H. Fallah, Arghavan Khosravi, Farideh Lashai, Farah Ossouli, Kour Pour, Elham Pourkhani, Shahpour Pouyan, Iman Raad, Bahar Sabzevari, Soraya Sharghi, Mahsa Tehrani.
About the Curator
Donna Honarpisheh
Donna Honarpisheh is Associate Curator of Knight Art and Research at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami, where she curates global exhibitions in modern and contemporary art. She is the writer and host of ICA Miami’s award-winning podcast, Tomorrow is the Problem, which covers pressing issues in art and culture. In addition to her curatorial work, Honarpisheh is a scholar of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory and has taught undergraduate courses in Global Modernisms, postcolonial studies, and aesthetics at Fordham University, Sarah Lawrence College, UC-Berkeley, and Georgetown University.