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until 11.11. | #3187ARTatBerlin | Galerie feinart berlin presents from 14. October 2021 the solo exhibition “Shades of Water” by the artist Ebrahim Ehrari.
The exhibition brings together the masterful etchings from Ehrari’s early work with the intensely colored abstract oil and acrylic paintings of his later work.
Ebrahim Ehrari, O. T. , 1998 © Ebrahim Ehrari
From 1957 Ebrahim Ehrari, born in Urmia, Iran (West Azerbaijan Province) in 1938, worked for two years as a pipeline welder on the island of Kharg in the Persian Gulf. In some cases, diving was carried out to a depth of up to 40 meters without diving equipment. This haunting experience of the sea, its power and quiet depth as well as its variety of forms have shaped the artist’s work for a lifetime. Works from Ehrari’s early and late work now come together in an exhibition entitled “Shades of Water”. The focus is on the motif of water: water as an element of life, as a symbol for purification, time and knowledge, but also as a representative of fate, the unconscious and longings, as well as an elemental force and warning.
Ebrahim Ehrari, Versuch zu atmen, 1998 © Ebrahim Ehrari
Ebrahim Ehrari’s early work is determined by masterful etchings, which Michael Nungesser aptly describes in 1982 as metaphorically encoded imagery between realism and symbolic exaggeration: “naturalistic in form, fantastical in structure, color and content combinatorics”, balancing “between the pictorial and the poetic symbolic”. In comparison, the intensely colored, abstract oil and acrylic paintings of the late work express a desire to break the boundaries of the representational and to celebrate color.
Ebrahim Ehrari, Affentanz, 2016 © Ebrahim Ehrari
Ebrahim Ehrari’s artistic life’s work, as well as the social and political awareness that defines him, unite two poles: the connection to homeland on the one hand and the striving for self-determination and freedom on the other. In Berlin since 1966, he studied graphic design between 1968 and 1973 under Prof. Wolfgang Ludwig and Prof. Hans Fortsch at the HdK. 1973-75 he taught in the field of graphic techniques at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran and at the University of Applied Arts there. From 1975-78 he studied art history at the Free University of Berlin and between 1976 and 2003 headed the etching workshop of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien from the BBK. Ebrahim Ehrari has been involved in art and cultural exchange between Germany and Azerbaijan since 1983, e.g. as co-founder and chairman of the Azerbaijani-German Cultural Association. The Berlin-Baku Gallery in Schöneberg, which he founded in 2007 (headed by his daughter Parwane Ehrari from 2014), was not only a renowned exhibition venue until 2018, but also a meeting place for artists from different cultures and nations.
Vernissage: Thursday 14 October 2021, 5:00 to 9:00 pm. Introduction speech by Maria Wirth (gallery owner) + Parwane Ehrari (the artist’s daughter) at 6:00 pm
Reading: Saturday, 30 October 2021, from 7 pm (details see calendar)
Finissage: Thursday, 11 November 2021, 5:00 – 9:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 14 October to Thursday, 11 November 2021
To the Gallery
Exhibition Ebrahim Ehrari – Galerie feinart berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst Berlin – Contemporary Art – Exhibitions Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
