Pariyoush Ganji
Audio of the Entire Interview
Interview Transcript
Part 01
Interview with the Pariyoush Ganji – part one
(Childhood)
I come from a big family.
I’m the tenth born among my 12 siblings.
My parents were Iranians from the city of Ganjeh [now located in Azerbaijan].
When the Soviet era began, and the Bolsheviks came to power
my parents moved from one city to another.
For a few years, they lived in Tbilisi [now in Georgia] and eventually they arrived to Tabriz [in Iran],
where they could speak Turkish with the locals.
Before I was born, my family moved twice to Tehran, & returned to Tabriz again
Finally, when I was three years old, my family settled in Tehran.
This was after the birth of my sister who is two years younger than me.
Back then, my father was a friend of Mir Mossavar Arjhangi.
Since the time of Pishehvary [1944-45], Arjhangi had a studio in Tabriz.
When I was about five, no one dared to enter my father’s room in our house, but I did .
Since my childhood, the sense of each colour has had a taste for me.
I remember, dipping my fingers in the paint and then putting it in the mouth,
to realize the taste of each colour, adding paint all around my mouth and my face.
During the summer time when we used to sleep on the rooftop,
every night after everyone fall asleep,
I went to the edge of the roof and flopped my arms as if I was flying.
This looked so real to me.
I was not so little, maybe I was at the 4th or 5th grade of primary school,
In my mind, I glided all over the city
and with a bird’s-eye view I inspected my sister’s or my uncle’s house,
then I returned to our own garden, I felt tired,
but I flopped again and went back on the roof and returned under my blanket.
This happened to me not only once or twice but every single night.
Once my father, who was aware of my fantasies,
told me “You will never learn if life is a dream or reality.”
“Now you think you are walking, but is it you walking in your dream or is it real?” he said.
“That’s because there is no difference between the two.”
“Life from the beginning till the end is just a dream, a fantasy.”
And now when I paint, yet those dreams are with me,
I think if it’s real or a dream?
Since that time in my childhood I got interested in painting,
and since the first grade of primary school I began to paint.
It was as though my pencil was seeking something to draw.
I got deeply interested in two things.
First, painting and second, reading novels.
At the third grade of school I easily read and understood novels of Stefan Zweig and John Steinbeck.
But at school I didn’t do well,
I was not good at mathematics, history and geography.
Even with the help of the others at home I could not understand mathematics.
My mind was all for reading novels.
They locked me in the storage room to do my homework,
but I kept some novels there and read those instead.
I didn’t do my homework, but I did paint and read.
I was at the 5th grade of primary school,
when in schools’ paining competition,
I won first place in Tehran Province, and second place in Iran
That was the first time, when I was praised in front of other students at school.
It was still before I enter Honarestn [high school of art in Iran],
my father told me that if I wanted him to buy me something,
I should draw it for him.
he said he could not understand me when I spoke.
I can’t remember if I wanted a pair of pants or a skirt,
but I drew a piece of clothes with patches on it
and a brand new clothing beside it,
I put the painting on a wall in his room, which made him laugh a lot.
The more I look back the more I realize that you need a support to improve.
You might try so hard but with no support it is so difficult
if not impossible, to get to somewhere,
you need someone in the family or from outside who is backing you,
and pushing you to grow.
I was at 9th grade, one day before our lesson of literature begin,
Our teacher was a sister of [renowned Iranian poet and writer] Simin Daneshvar,
I drew something on the blackboard and didn’t erase it.
when she saw my painting, she advised me to register my name at Honarestan.
I didn’t know anything about Honarestan.
Later on, my older sister noticed an advertisement of Honarstan
for the registration of prospective students.
My mother was a bit against the idea of Honarestan, but my father supported me,
and I registered at the art high school.
The day when I went with my sister for registration,
I remember there was a copy of a Bruegel’s painting hung on a wall in the stairway.
It was a painting of a farmer and his wife taking a nap after lunch.
and I’ve become deeply interested in Brugels’ artwork.
At Honarestan, Reza Forouzi was my teacher,
whom worked with us for all three years of school,
and Yahia Zoka taught us Art History.
[Famous Iranian painters] Javad Hamidy and Mahmoud Javadipour were senior students at school.
Among other teachers was Mahmoud Farshchian who taught Miniature.
I also learned a lot from Dr. Golzari who taught us decorative arts.
Forouzi asked us to choose one leaf,
and make an exactly similar painting of that leaf with watercolor.
We had to do an exact copy, and this method was a great practice for us.
Indeed, the greatest impact on my work, regarding the understanding of color,
happened in courses taught by Forouzi
We had to paint still life, painting eggplants,
pumpkins and apples in the same style of Cézanne.
Forouzi was so intrigued by Impressionism.
Once I painted an eggplant, black or purple.
Forouzi told me “this is not the correct color,”
“now narrow your eyes and look at the thousands of colors that you can see,” he continued.
And this was a turning point in my career.
I am a colorist painter,
and compared with other elements of painting, I understand colors pretty well,
because I’ve thoroughly studied colors,
and colors became a fundamental principle of my artwork,
since my three-year study at Honarestan,
where I received a great education in art.
Part 02
Pariyoush Ganji Interview – 2 / Education in England
After I received my diploma from Honarestan [high school of art in Iran],
during the summer time, with other classmates from the school we launched an atelier.
There we taught to students and in the same time got prepared for the university entrance exam.
Compared with students from biology or other majors we were weaker students.
My drawing was not bad.
During the first year, at Honarestan
we had drawing classes every day from 8 to 12 with Forouzi.
And one day during the week we went to the National Museum of Iran to draw,
so we were so fast at drawing.
Anyway, I did teach there and also did the university entrance exam.
My English grade was so low, maybe 1 [out of 20] and I got 4 at Farsi literature
but I had the second highest grade at drawing with a very close difference with the first person.
All those to whom I taught drawing, also were accepted at the university.
Back then, Arjhangi’s daughter lived in England and my siblings were in Germany.
I wanted to live on my own and learn and experience.
Germany could be something similar to our home in Iran,
and there I had to study what my family agreed on.
Banoo [Arjhangi’s daughter] told me about a program at British Council letting me to move to England,
I could live with a local family and take care of their child
and in the evenings take English lessons.
Not only I didn’t need to pay money, I could also earn some.
I thought if I tell this to my mother there will be an apocalypse at home.
I didn’t say anything to my mother and I went to British Council and applied.
I got accepted and they found me a family outside London to stay with.
One day I sat with my family and I raised the topic
but my mother strongly objected me
She told me that in England I had to work as a domestic worker.
She said that I could go to Germany and stayed with my sister or brother.
My father calmed her down and asked me to explain my plans.
I told him that each person should decide about their fate,
and that I saw my fate in going to England
I asked them to let me go and I cried a bit, my mother also began to cry,
and insisting that she could not let her daughter become a domestic worker.
I told her that there was no problem even if I had to work as a domestic worker
and I begged her to let me go and to let me experience and grow.
Eventually, my mother let me go to England,
specifically, because my father was on my side.
Since my parents had the experience of migration and going through tough times,
they knew a good result will come out of such experiences.
They agreed with my plan and I left Iran with a little money.
I told them that I wanted to work and cover my expenses on my own.
My host family told me to go to Victoria Station from Heathrow Airport
and wait under a neon light for them.
I didn’t know one word in English,
and when I boarded on the plane I noticed what a big decision I had made,
I wished the plane would crashed to avoid going through the unknown in front of me.
I arrived to London and I saw a couple who were waiting for me where they said.
It was a cold December in 1967
This family lived in High Wycombe far from London.
They really loved me,
and even though our agreement was only on me taking care of their children
I also helped at home.
There was not much to do in that small town,
so I also helped with cleaning and I had time to read books.
In the evenings I took English lessons and then we had dinner all together.
One day I decided that I could not continue in that way,
I think it was after two months that I stayed with that family.
I had someone’s number who lived in London.
She was Russian and her husband was Iranian.
I was told that they could help we if I had any problem
I called them and went to visit them in London on my day off.
She said that I could stay with them in a free room that they had,
and in return I could help her for the housework.
I also had the weekends free to work for my own.
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They lived at the heart of London,
and it was a good opportunity for me.
This made me so happy and I moved to their place.
After that for the first time I went to a museum and saw Van Gough’s
and Monet’s work directly.
Our teacher Forouzi, had talked a lot about Van Gough,
and it was a dream for me to see his works.
My life began on the day when I took a bus and went to the museum.
I helped that family and also worked in a shop selling clothes.
From the shop I could buy coats and shoes on instalment.
With that job I also managed to buy
several books and make a full bookshelf.
Part 03
Pariyoush Ganji Part Three
I three times changed the universities at which I studied.
First I decided to study painting,
and then I thought to myself why should I spent money
to learn things that I had already known.
My father had a textile factory in Iran,
so I thought if I study textile design I could also be a help to my father.
I studied painting at Saint Martin’s and at
Sir John Cass School of Art one year each,
There, what I found useful was the emphasis on drawing.
I did lots of figure drawings.
Finally, I began studying textile design at Chelsea
School of Fine arts, and I did like it.
Through textile design I learnt about colors,
and I got the courage to break the boundaries of painting.
From textile design I learned how to use stencil,
and how to make texture in my paintings.
At our first jugemen, which took place in a large hall,
my work attracted the attention of the head
of photography department.
Yet my English was not good, and he began to praise my work.
There I used patterns of kilims.
Back then, in 1969 or 1970, there was no computer
and kilims were not widely known,
even Iranian art didn’t have its current worldwide fame.
Anyways, I used a very dynamic way to
show my design based on kilims,
and the head of photography department said that
I would have bright future,
and that I would become a great painter.
and that I would become a great painter.
My brother in law was a doctor and he found me
a job in the same hospital where he worked.
I had to do the beds and give food to the patients
to make some money.
At that time my tuition fee was 150 pounds per year,
I could pay it in instalments and pay 50 pounds each semester.
In England I also worked as a babysitter to cover
the expenses of my studies.
Textile design was an expensive major,
because we had to buy high quality gouache and paper.
But in the same time I was 20 kilos thinner than now.
Yes, I was so thin because I didn’t eat much.
First because I didn’t have appetite to eat,
and second I didn’t have the money to have a proper food.
But when I look back, I think if now I get a chance to live my life again,
I will do everything exactly as I have done.
When I received my bachelor,
my sister and brother in law found me a position as a designer,
in a famous German textile-printing factory.
My sister’s family knew the owner of the factory,
and when he learnt that I had done my studies in textile design,
he invited me to join his team.
My sister wrote me a letter and informed me about that,
and I moved to Germany.
And what an enormous atelier they had!
The loads of colors and brushes there made me go crazy.
The first design I made for them was based on Iranian motives.
Back then machine-made-carpet design was different from now
A designer from the atelier told me teasingly,
that I should design in a way that if a lamb chop falls
on the carpet no one could find it!!
That’s how ridicules were their designs.
What I did there, was to bring in the primary colors in my designs.
They didn’t have such thing before.
I used red, blue and green in my work, which they loved it.
It was 1974 and my salary was 2000 Marks,
nd when they saw my design,
the company gave me one fourth of my salary as incentive pay.
But I was not yet satisfied.
Since the year I entered Honarestan [high school of art in Iran],
I had always had it in mind that I should go to Beaux Art,
Paris School of Fine Arts.
One day I told the company that I wanted
to leave and to go to Beaux Art.
They told me if I stayed I would get to higher
positions and would have a better salary
and could travel everywhere.
But all I had in mind was the idea of Beaux Art.
It was just the beginning of me having a good salary
and economic stability,
but I left everything and went to France and became poor again.
I stayed there for one year.
But I learnt that England was more avant-garde,
that was the end of the Paris era when I arrived there.
In my opinion Beaux Art was nothing more than an art high school.
During that year I again did lots of drawings and
worked in various ateliers.
There I had a professor called Monsieur Le Mani who
knew a bit of English.
He told me “Pariyoush don’t waste your time here,”
“If you want to learn drawing, go and copy the
first pre-historic drawings,”
“like the ones on Iranian prehistoric pottery,”
“or drawings like what you find on the walls of Altamira
and other caves,”
“and then go for historic paintings,”
“then look for Iranian or Greek classists”
“and then copy only the outlines in
the paintings of impressionists and fauvists,”
“and finally Kandinsky.”
“Then sit in front of a mirror and draw your own portrait.”
“After that you will be a new person and you can begin to paint.”
Indeed, this was one of the best advices I’ve had.
I’ve been so lucky to find people who could show me the way,
I’ve really searched for such people and they’ve also helped me a lot.
That’s how I learned drawing by heart and it has
been engraved in my mind.
In Paris, I worked a lot and didn’t eat well.
I was alone and didn’t care much about my health.
Then I returned to Iran and married Massoud Khayam.
For a while I worked at “Institute for the Intellectual
Development of Children and Young Adults” [Kanoon]
Then we went to England and my son was born there.
And here was a period of housewifery and taking care of my son,
because Massod was doing his PhD.
But even then I kept working as a painter.
Since I did not have time and I had to take
care of a small child I worked on small paintings.
In this period, I worked on three circles with different colors,
and painted them in way that the composition
of the colors would not let the circles to fall.
In 1980 we returned to Iran and our second child was born here.
After a while we migrated to the U.S. but we
stayed only for nine months.
We could not live there, Iran was our place to live and we returned.
In 1983 I began teaching textile design at universities,
but I’ve never taught painting.
The most dangerous thing for a painter is to teach painting.
I taught textile design at Honar University,
and I taught drawing at Azad University
and at Cultural Heritage Organization.
Part 04
Pariyoush Ganji Part 4
I was selected for a great fellowship by Japan Foundation.
The fellowship was a research about the impact of Iranian motives – specifically from
the Sassanid era (224-651 AD) – on Japanese kimonos and obis.
An influence which happened through the Silk Road.
At the time, I was married and had two children,
and the fellowship was for one year.
To be honest I didn’t want to go, because I didn’t like to leave my family.
But Massoud, my husband, encouraged me to go,
I finally decided to accept the offer but only for six months.
And like always I was looking to strengthen my drawing techniques.
I did the research part and also painted at the same time.
I was from an extended family and always busy with lots of responsibilities,
so I found plenty of free time in Japan when I was far from the family.
I found a fantastic teacher for Sumi-e, ink painting.
When I went to him I didn’t say that I was a painter.
It was very interesting, he was 90 years old and sitting here in the class,
the students were siting all around,
and when he entered the class all the students bowed and paid respect to him.
He put a mat for me just close to where he sat, which made the other students very surprised.
He didn’t know a word in English or French and spoke just in Japanese.
In Japanese he explained me what to do and how to draw and I did as he said.
I could understand whatever he said and this was so strange.
Since I was always sitting at his side I learned the essence of his technique and how to move the brush
I learned ow to sit and organize everything perfectly to begin to paint,
and about where was the place of Suzuri, Japanese inkstone,
and then how to use the ink and draw as it sounds khert khert khert ….
This sound of khert khert khert continues as the ink mixes with water
and in the same time it makes your arm stronger.
After a while when your arm gets strong enough, you don’t move the
brush with your hand but the move comes from deep inside you.
His teaching began with how to draw a straight line
and then he continued on how to paint a circle.
Mastering in how to draw a circle could take up to three or six months
even a year, and the students only work on the circle for a long time.
When the circle was perfect then, we could sign that drawing.
I could draw the circle at the second session.
And he never asked me if I was a painter,\
and I neither liked to tell him about that or to show him my works.
On the last day, when I was about to say goodbye
, he gave me 20 pieces of his ink paintings.
All other students were very surprised.
And someone who knew English translated what he said.
He told me that he was sure I was Japanese in my previous life,
because I could understand whatever he explained to me.
And I told him that I thought he was Persian in his previous life.
Firstly, because I could understand whatever he said,
secondly because it seemed to me that he had always been
present there in my life, and I had known him for a lifetime.
This fellowship was from Japan Foundation, every year that
foundation provides a fellowship for comparative research in different fields.
Japan was not on the Silk Road,
but many presents dedicated to Buddha passed through the Silk Road
many of those presents were from the Sassanid Empire [in Iran].
There is a museum in Nara called Shōsō-in,
which is the treasure house of an emperor and has been preserved perfectly.
Various pieces of clothes from the Sassanid era are kept there.
Sassanid fabrics were common all across the old Japan.
In old Japan, one’s economic wealth was determined by the number of kimonos they had.
If you look at those old kimonos you find Chinese and Japanese design on the top layer.
But on the inner layer you will find Iranian motives and Sassanid design.
For instance, you can find Sassanid circle or
hexagonal motives which carry another motive at the center.
These designs are not only seen in Japan,
Sassanid textile design was highly respected all across the world.
Even during the 19th century,
at the Vatican the dead bodies of the Pope and high-ranking cardinals
were wrapped with fabrics which had Sassanid motives to purge the dead body.
My project in Japan, at the end turned to be more related to painting.
I worked on a combination of Iranian and Japanese window frames.
I created about 30 paintings in which I was inspired by Shōji windows in Japan.
Indeed, my career changed a lot after Japan.
Japan have influenced me unconsciously,
I didn’t plan to get influence from Japanese culture.
Even now when I look at my works from that period I can’t say they are Japanese.
It was not only Japan that had an impact on my work from that time.
During that period, I lived alone for six months, which means six
months of thinking, considering, and working alone.
And this was how my career has changed.
Part 05
Pariyoush Ganji Part 5
For few years in Germany, when I worked as a textile designer, I stopped painting,
in beaux arts I began to paint again,
I did paintings of my own room, and things surrounded me,
It was the time when I got to know my husband, Massoud, who talked a lot about the galaxy
and the Cosmos and this caused me a fear which resulted in new paintings.
After that, I had a period of painting portraits.
I did portraits of famous Iranian artists
like Ahmad Reza Ahmadi, Pari Saberi and Parvaneh Etemadi.
I also painted portraits of Massoud and our children and two or three self-portraits.
For landscape painting I went to Darakeh, where a stream flows down the mountain
At a certain time, no one was at their correct position in the country,
the academicians were not teaching at universities,
or butchers were doing what was not their job.
In a series of paintings from this time the figures in my works are faceless.
It’s not clear whose who and who does what.
I did an exhibition of these works in my house.
During another period, when women in Iran where under tremendous pressure
I painted a series of women who are in a huff,
they are covering their faces by hands or their faces are turned away.
It is a bit expressive and it looks as if the women don’t want to talk.
Then it’s the time when I went to Japan.
It was not a decision that I made but a natural change.
At the same time, I painted loads of still life pieces.
Flowers are one of my favorite themes to paint.
Anytime I’ve felt like being stuck, I paint flowers, and I like it a lot.
The first exhibition of my works was held at Sabz Gallery, curated by Akbar Sadeghi.
There, I exhibited my works from Japan.
My exhibitions pervious to that one, were all held in my own house.
I only had one exhibition at a gallery before going to Japan,
Which was at Pāfār Gallery, where I displayed my portraits.
In my next exhibition, I put on show the paintings with a blue theme
which looked like ink wash but I used oil paints for those pieces.
In those works, you see long branches hanging down.
When I worked on the blue ones, unconsciously these red ones came into my mind.
There in, you can find Japanese windows, black frames
and Iranian gereh chini [traditional windows] as well.
It’s indeed like the collapse of debris.
My country’s social and political conditions have always had a huge impact on my work.
I noticed that a period of red works was being shaped step by step.
Before this period, I had never used black paint, even not much of red.
But this suddenly happened to me,
which is actually because of the situation in which we lived back then
It was a time when we were under attack from across Iran’s political spectrum,
and we were also there, trying to hid ourselves in a corner to survive.
In a diptych work of mine, gereh chini is red which is the color of those ruins or flood or whatever it is
But on the other part of the painting,
gereh chini is hidden in the texture and you can’t see it, as if they are hiding to survive,
Like what we’ve had in our history.
Red has two meanings to me, one is the blood and war.
But the other meaning is related to life, a life which has blood and vein in it,
with the black in the background which makes a contrast.
In my dark purple works, it’s like you don’t know what to do,
you know what’s going on around you,
but you can’t say a word.
If you turn the lights on you can’t see anything in these paintings,
It’s like a mirror.
I mean it’s as if we hide and we look stealthy at ourselves in a mirror
But we are there, we are hidden, sometimes we come out.
Once I had a serious pneumonia, my fever was over 40 centigrade,
I was taken to the hospital,
when I arrived there, they put me on a bed and I think I went unconscious.
As I was laying there I felt like my body ascended horizontally,
and began to move to a place which was an exhibition like here.
My purple works where on one side just like here,
and I’m still laid down, and my paintings are around,
I see that there are some white paintings,
I think to myself that those white ones are not mine,
but I’m being told that those are also mine.
Exactly at that moment, I heard a nurse telling me that my fever was going down.
When I got back home from the hospital, I painted two works all in white
Since I was still sick, you can see the paint dripped down those canvases.
I usually mix the paint very watery to be able to paint several layers on the canvas,
It’s somehow like milk,
I paint one layer and wait until it dries,
I need to constantly take care of it not to have the paint dripping down.
But in those two first white works, the drippings are there because I was still sick.
You’re asking me what these white ones mean…
To me, these ones have a sense of music.
And for sure they carry a sense of hope,
like the optimism that one has about a bad situation to become better.
In a large work from this period,
you can see different tonalities of white and a plant which is in blossom
In that painting, the flowers are not scattered or difficult to see, you can clearly see those
And the flowers are in water or they have roots, which means they are alive.
The blue paintings came after the white ones and are strongly related to rivers,
I like rivers a lot.
I also had something else in mind, I did think of how during the day we easily go in the water
we enjoy the sound of the revivers and the branches of willows hanging over us,
Everyone enjoys it.
But as soon as the sky begins to get dark, a fear comes.
I’m not a fearful person, but I don’t know what this fear is.
Is it because of my age, and that I think how my tomorrow will be?
At the same time, I know that tomorrow this is river will be as it is today.
I don’t know what is this horror, this dread, this terror.
Maybe the fear is from this doubt about tomorrow, what if tomorrow won’t be fine…
Part 06
Society has had a direct influence on my work, my thoughts and emotions,
A very strong influence,
As a young student at Honarestan
[High School of art in Iran], Impressionism was an ideal style in my mind,
Later on, when I went to the West and visited art museums,
Expressionism became a huge influence on me
I like the Fauvist movement as well
Matisse and the way he simplifies the shape of the objects and
draws the outlines has strongly affected the way that I paint
His style has added a lot to the techniques that I learned from Miniature,
he himself was influenced by Iranian Miniature
But in general, I can’t name one single painter that I copied – which could also be a good idea –
I’ve never done that, but anyway you receive influence through seeing.
When I painted the first painting from the Red series,
I was told that my work looked like the Rothko’s
But I had not seen his work until I went to the United States,
I was not so familiar with his works before that
In these works of mine you always see trees up there and the water down here
You can see the branches of the trees and the move they have
And underneath is the water
A combination of water and branches.
This is the trunk here and these are the branches and you see the water down there.
If you do ink paintings for long, you discover strange techniques.
There is only one color in ink painting, and it is totally different from watercolor.
It’s not only the technique which is different, it also needs a different way of thinking.
You have a lot to do with the empty spaces in ink painting.
Those empty spaces have much more meaning than the parts you paint.
I mean there is an existing contrast in ink painting, between the emptiness and fullness,
you cannot find this contrast in works which are completely painted without any empty space.
This concept in ink painting helps you develop capabilities to make use of empty spaces on canvas,
I think this was one of the inspirations that led me to become a mono-color painter
My mono-color paintings are not really mono-color,
For instance, when I have purple in my work,
I don’t take the purple paint and put it on the canvas.
To make that purple color I sometimes use blue, or red, or yellow,
Even the color I use in my white paintings are not pure white,
There could be 12 or 15 different paints that I mix to reach the white that I want.
Colorism does not mean to use only one color, like when we paint a wall.
There are different tones of different colors in what we see.
Instead of seeing yellow, red, blue or green separately you see all of them mixed together in one color
These different colors are symbols of different layers of our history, our life.
These layers are like what Jacques de Morgan described when
he visited the historical site of Shush in southern Iran,
where different layers of structures from different dynasties are visible
I was in Shush years ago, and since then I’ve always kept this story in mind.
When you read history you can better see these layers,
and you understand that today is also a chapter in history.
Today, when you go out ,you are one person and at home you are another
We have this dual personality to survive, as a way to continue with life.
It’s not because our nation is layer, all ancient civilizations are like this.
This is a technique we’ve adopted to survive.
Window is something from which we take a look,
But we can’t really say on which side of the window we are.
Am I standing inside or outside?
Who is looking at me while I’m here?
Each of us has a mental framework, and these windows also work as mental frameworks to us.
When we look through these frameworks,
do the persons or objects at whom we look, look at us too?
So who is looking at who? Is it us looking at them or them at us?
Where are we standing at? What’s happening here?
Does the person on the other side also think about all these concepts?
The windows that I’ve painted are the same as our mental
frameworks, the frames with which we think and act.
We have a framework in our mind, but we hide it, without even knowing why.
You want to know why? You should go back to our history.
Our history is full of those who came into power and overthrew the others.
We’ve had to put shields in front of us over and over again in our history,
will see that Iranians have been educated and humane with rich history and literature.
On one hand, these layers are obstructing us,
but on the other hand are a sort of protection for us.
This protection has made us what now we are as Iranians.
To me, flowers are symbols of human, of life.
If you paint a portrait it will be about the individuals,
But if you show life with flowers, that’s not about one person, that’s about everyone.
No it doesn’t mean that I’m on bad terms with humankind,
I’ve done loads of figurative drawings and ink paintings,
But I can’t bring figures in these paintings.
Because it seems that I’ve not yet understood what today’s human is looking for.
I have no problem with the human of old days and I’ve painted them,
I have many figurative paintings like that.
How can I relate myself to today’s human and the way they think?
If this human comes and stands at the frame of my windows what will it say?
How would this human explain the meaning of that window?
I actually tried to bring in the figures, but you can only see their backs,
Which shows a different life, a new one.
But at the same time there is anxiety in it, everything is worrying in these works.
To be honest, I’m scared of depicting those feelings on a large canvas
Light? You should search and find the light
To find the light you need to search deeply
And this is the light that we all have it inside ourselves
When I was painting this one, it became darker and darker
Then I thought that light should come out of this darkness
It was not possible without light
Nothing is definite.
Any definite thing will break at some point and will open up.
It was about the midnight when I added a new layer of gloss varnish on this work
I used gloss varnish which dries quickly.
And then I went to sleep,
I’m an early bird, and when I got up in the morning, I first went to check the painting
I saw that the painting looks like a mirror, and I could see myself in it
That was when I thought, this light is equal to human beings
The sun, the rain or light all will have a different meaning without human beings
Nothing will have the same meaning as now.
There must be a human being to see and comprehend all these things.
This is why in this painting, light appears at the heart of definite darkness,
And for me that light means human beings.
In paintings with a subject, it’s easier to express what you have in mind.
But if there is a totally black painting in front of you, without anything else
and you are aware that there are many thoughts in this black painting
This is when you can say the experience of many years are there in it
There is an extract of life in it, which is both hidden and visible
If you don’t shed light on this painting, you can’t see anything
without light on it, it looks like just a mirror that you can see yourself in it.
Since I open my eyes in the morning I’m worried about my unfinished works
This means I’m worried about the pieces which keep coming into my mind
I don’t make any étude for my work. I never do that.
Each piece will dictate you how to paint it.
I can’t say I did the same thing in this painting as I did for the other one.
These are some A4 size works I’m painting for a book,
even to me it’s unbelievable to see new atmosphere in these works
I don’t know at all how this has happened
When you sit down and begin to work, new things will happen
It’s like taking care of a baby
You know that you should feed and bathe the baby
These things come and flow naturally.
Part 07
Pariyoush Ganji Part 7
To me, life is like creating a painting,
I never make preliminary drawings when I want to paint.
always sit in front of a blank canvas,
and wait for something that should happen.
I’ve been like this all my life.
I’m not a coward person,
To be honest, this life style that I live, happened to me very unconsciously,
I didn’t plan for this.
It was not like me saying “I want to do this first, and then do that.”
But as soon as I figure out that there was a wrong path that I took,
I don’t erase that part of my life or my painting.
I keep it and use it in one corner of my painting,
I accept it as one part of my life.
Whatever has happened in my life, was what I wanted to happen.
And if there was something that I didn’t want,
that was because I was not aware of what it was.
That occurrence happened and then I learned how good it was.
Now that I’m sitting here,
I have no regret of what I’ve done in my life.
I think this is one of the most important achievements in my life.
I did my best to learn as much as I could,
I watched, I looked around and I learned as much as I could.
My life began when I started to paint.
Wherever in the world I was, I did paint.
My children were growing up, seeing me painting.
There are times, when I don’t paint for a month for example,
but during that time I’m so worried,
as if I’m not feeding my children,
as if I’m not living.
These things have been interwoven in my life.
I have always had my atelier at home.
When I work,
to be honest, I don’t notice how the time passes,
or where I am,
I don’t notice things around me.
But I have a timer in my head that tells me,
don’t forget the food, check it not to burn.
For example, those white paintings,
I didn’t notice how I finished those.
It’s the same when I do ink painting.
Especially because I prefer to do ink paintings while I’ll have my legs in flowing water,
like this I can put my brush in the water and then paint.
If no one calls me or comes close,
I’ll keep painting for hours.
I actually find it natural,
Because I’ve been painting since I entered Honarestan [high school of art in Iran] when I was 16.
This is a result of doing something for years and years.
There is a Zen proverb saying that you should paint bamboo till you yourself make into bamboo,
After that you should keep painting bamboo till bamboo turns into bamboo and you become yourself.
If you choose how to live your life,
for sure you will enjoy every moment of it,
no matter if it is hard or easy.
If you follow a goal consciously, whatever happens to you on that path,
you would be happy of that occurrence.
Let’s take the example of the first time you have a baby.
When I first held my son after he was born,
I asked myself what was life before this?
life was nothing before that moment.
Previous experiences were nothing compared with holding my baby for the first time.
That’s a very strange memory of mine,
and then I had my second baby, and new experiences and memories came with her.
Then you have your grandchildren,
and in the same time you stand in front of a painting
and you feel you are going to unify with that painting.
These are all ups and downs of life.
Artists should pay respect to their audience.
The audience shape the artist.
The audience have rights to like or dislike what artists create.
My work and I are a same thing while I’m working.
I paint and the painting lets me do what I want to do.
After creation, we get separated, it is done.
Like a mother and a child, the child grows and leaves the mother.
At this point, it is the audience and the painting, who should make a relationship.
I was just a medium who did something to build a friendship between the audience and the work,
to help them see each other, and enjoy each other.
The personal struggle of artists begins since the first day when an artist becomes an artist.
Artists are responsible for their work.
Being an artist is not like being in a scene from a play,
where you appear and then the scene changes and you disappear,
and you leave the scene and everything finishes.
When you are responsible about what you do,
you can’t act and then leave.
Your act will be documented.
and you can’t escape from that.
That’s one reason for the suicide of some artists.
Why Rothko killed himself?
Because he found himself being a stooge.
on the day when the mind becomes aware of being an artist,
this sense of responsibility occurs to the mind.
Today’s human is very different from the past,
we have a big responsibility.
It’s even complicated to talk about these responsibilities.
Just have a look at our Sher-e-no (modern poetry),
and its developments from the 1960’s.
It’s generally more recognizable in the history of literature.
The fact that we still use our own language, and that we have our own culture
demonstrates the historical responsibility of our nation.
desires are what you are born with,
it’s no matter how hard society dictates you to desire this or that.
If you have strong mentality, and pay attention to internal needs,
then you will enjoy what you have.
For me, painting was born with me,
has lived with me, and will leave with me.
Like all other things.
interviewer: But you were born with painting.
Oh yes, that’s absolutely correct.
To me, my work is the same thing as my children and family.
It’s my country, my homeland.
It’s like chain, if you take a piece out,
It will all fall apart.
My painting is my homeland.
It’s true that I learned a lot outside Iran, so many things I learned,
but for example when I lived in the U.S. for a year,
I couldn’t draw even a line.
I can even say that I was raised in Europe,
because I left Iran after high school,
but when I returned to Iran, the artist inside of me flourished.
I worked there in Europe and had well-paid jobs,
but I left everything,
because I wanted to become what I am now.
The most important advice that I can make,
is to keep working and not being scared.
Which means neither be scared of a cockroach, nor a lion
neither darkness, nor war.
Don’t be afraid of anything.
Just keep going, go and open new paths.
You are victor, if you are not afraid.