Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Negar Farajiani Creates Puzzles from Self-Portraits

Iranian artist Negar Farajiani uses her own self-portrait in a series of puzzles, where she distorts, hides, and reveals her physical appearance and identity. To make the puzzles, Faraijani cuts identical jigsaw pieces from dry mounted photographs. She then reassembles the pieces to create new, slightly chaotic and impractical compositions.

Iranian artist Negar Farajiani uses her own self-portrait in a series of puzzles, where she distorts, hides, and reveals her physical appearance and identity. To make the puzzles, Faraijani cuts identical jigsaw pieces from dry mounted photographs. She then reassembles the pieces to create new, slightly chaotic and impractical compositions.

Self-identified as “a woman and an artist,” her muddled works are political and social commentaries on the complexities of her position as a woman. For example, in “Witness B,” the artist’s mouth is hidden while her dark brown eyes remain wide open. With this action, Faraijani demonstrates that despite seeing certain events, she feels unable ­­‒ forbidden ‒ to provide her account of particular situations and events. This idea of being inferior, of needing to ask for permission, is further emphasized in the title of the work, “Witness B.” “Witness B” is part of a corpus of works that reference a trial. “The Accuser” has her eyes removed while “The Executioner” no longer resembles a face. One may interpret these works as a reference not to a specific trial, but instead to the daily trial women face.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Lebanese photographer Lara Zankoul's fairytale-esque series "The Unseen" looks like it could have been the result of some clever PhotoShop, but in reality the artist created her imaginative, underwater scenes by inviting models to submerge themselves in a human-scale fish tank. Outfitted like a retro domestic interior, the glass box provided a nostalgic setting for Zankoul to stage cheeky scenarios of subaquatic home life. A process video reveals her models climbing into the tank from a ladder in their pristine formalwear. The resulting photographs allow viewers to suspend disbelief and immerse themselves in Zankoul's whimsical narratives.
Recent photography and costuming work by the duo Kahn & Selesnick chronicles the travels of Truppe Fledermaus, a cabaret troupe of “would-be mystics who catalogue their absurdist attempts to augur a future that seems increasingly in peril due to environmental pressures.” The “Book of Fate” works showcase the pair’s talents in both installation work and crafting narratives.
Nothing beat a cardboard box growing up because it wasn't just made of cardboard. Cardboard could instantly become your ticket to a rocket on the moon or your dream fortress where you ruled the world. Using this simple material and a lot of imagination, artist duo Zoey Taylor and David Connelly have built the world they wish to live in. They call it "The House of Cardboard", better known as "Dosshaus". The two (or as they say, "Les Deux") first met in 2010 and it was a match made in heaven that works together as a team, cutting and gluing together the cardboard pieces into life size installations, which feature the creative couple living in a monochromatic black and white house.
The haunting smoke photographs of French photographer Gilles Soudry transport us into his black and fluffy universe, where the streams of smoke take on strangely human and animal-like formations. First featured here on our blog last year, Soudry has since completed the third installment of his "Volutes" series, an ongoing study of smoke's mystifying effects as it is captured in a single moment in time.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List