Leila Vismeh

Leila combines memories of childhood, visuals of winters in her hometown, and images of her father in his air force uniform. She then weaves into her work the struggle, frustration, relapse, and renewed struggle of Iranian humans, and especially Iranian women's fight for identity in a patriarchal society.
For her, we all live a journey with no discernible destination. The quest of modern humans is to find meaning in a meaningless existence. However, the journey itself becomes the very burden we carry in our search for identity and meaning. We are all reincarnations of Sisyphus, perpetually cheating death, darkness, and oblivion as we seek knowledge, only to be sentenced to endless struggle. Yet, we do not give up. And that is the underlying hope in Leila's works.
In Leila's paintings, there is motion, albeit within a state of stagnant freeze. It is this frozen motion, rather than the freeze itself, that suddenly makes sense.
Leila's paintings evoke the rubaiyat (quatrains) of the celebrated 11th-century Iranian poet, Omar Khayyam, who lamented about human struggle:
How I wish there could be some place to rest, Or I could reach the end of this long road. How I wish that after a hundred thousand years, I could, like a fresh plant, sprout from the earth.

Leila emphasizes that her success lies not in overtly voicing a message through painting, but in enabling the beholder to connect with the artistic creation and associate with the mood. She paints men on horses in the background in black on a white winter day. However, our attention is drawn towards bloody rabbits in the foreground, animals that live their entire lives in silence, even when in pain. We see fighter jet pilots in the background. Everything is in black and white, except for a bloody rabbit (is it dead?) lying on its side in the foreground, and suddenly we connect with those in the background through the rabbit. What might seem like a commonplace scene on an ordinary wintry day artistically transforms into a shock with the addition of the rabbit.

It may appear that humans are secondary and only auxiliary in her paintings, yet human relations within society are deeply important to Leila, as they reflect the meaning of our existence. The artist observes the setting from afar. And she sadly acknowledges the role of war in shaping this setting.
Leila was born in Arak, and studied art at University.

Exhibitions:

  • 2022 “A Mother for Earth”, MAC Maja Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy
  • 2019 “There Is No End to This Winter”, Etemad Gallery
  • 2016 “The Hunt”, MAC Maja Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy
  • 2015 “The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble”, Etemad Gallery
  • 2011 “A Mother for Earth”, Day Gallery
  • 2020 “On Paper”, Etemad Gallery
  • 2018 “German - Persian Encounter in Art”, Säulenhalle Landsberg , Munich, Germany
  • 2017 “The 11th Edition of Art Expo Malaysia (MECC)”, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 2017 “The Homage”, MAC Maja Arte Contemporanea, Rome, Italy
  • 2017 “Trends and Approaches in Contemporary Iranian Art”, Mellat Gallery
  • 2017 “Des Artistes Français (Art Capital)”, GRAND PALAIS, Paris, France
  • 2016 “Raad Charity's Auction”, Raad Charity
  • 2015 “4th Tehran Auction of Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art”, Parsian Azadi Hotel
  • 2014 “Art for Peace”, Mohsen Gallery
  • 2013 “Self-Musement”, Y Art Studio
  • 2012 “Seven Viewpoints”, Niavaran Cultural Center

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