Metaphors Print

The toy appears in almost every one of my pictorial puzzles! It is the recurring element, the borrowed index of nostalgia, that combines in many different forms in virtually all my compositions. The toy sometimes acts as a common thread, sometimes as an indispensable element, even if it is more or less hidden. It metamorphoses, imposes itself, shows the tip of its nose, slowly fades out according to a formula constantly renewed that I do not bridle! Thus, the crocodile more or less friendly wandering on my paintings is the nostalgic memory of my childhood In the 80s, after the war, the stationery was limited, there was only one pencil mark, and a tiny crocodile adorned the scripting tool of schoolchildren! I loved it and spent a lot of time dreaming and drawing with my two pencils: red and black! The range of toys was small: I remember my cubes, my train, the hot air balloon that had been hung in my room, the patterns of the carpets on which I jumped by inventing rules, the hopscotch of the yard of recreation that we little girls, on the uneven floor, the swing in the garden of my grandparents, the teddy bear of my childhood and some other soft toys ... All these fun memories arise on my canvas randomly and spontaneously. And I discover to myself, surprise, how the toy is of paramount importance and keeps coming back at the most unpredictable moment. I create stories, fluff (bird, bear, cat) become the actors, the toys often make the scene: walls of citadels cubes, imaginary journey with the wooden train, they come alive. Links subtle betray an underlying story and a chain composition. This internal circulation on the canvas, I am aware, is my story in the manner of a tale revisited with the lighting of the contemporary world, but I do not reveal it to the viewer. I want him to be free to think, to see, to imagine ... In my paintings, I want to keep the look of the child, the grounds of the carpet, the vase, the mirror, the furniture, all the objects of the house play a role of toys. Proportions no longer have meaning; the same dream world unites them in the comic, the serious, the poetic, and the emotional in its broadest sense. ELHAM ETEMADI, An Iranian artist, who was born in Shiraz in 1983.she is Ph.D. art visuel in France, Elham attended the University of Art in Tehran for her undergraduate studies in painting.