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Simin Ekrami
Sculptor
Iran
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Simin is sculptor with unique affinity for organic materials and forms. Her figures speak to her from wood and stone. They emerge from their source as though suspended in animation and then released and give life by deft hand of the artist
Simin was born in Tehran , the youngest of four daughters. She was destined to be a sculptor. In 1968, having completed her high school, Simin left Iran for the United States. She began a BA in fine arts at Morgan state University in Baltimore . in 1971, for family reasons, she returned to Tehran and completed her degree at Tehran University.
Despite her time abroad, Simin is firmly grounded in the Persian artistic tradition. The stone-works of Persepolis have proven to be her strongest influence and inspiration. She has studied these sculptures to improve upon them and to produce works of similar genre but more abstract in form. In the end, she found, The more I studied the sculptures of Persepolis, the more I studied the sculptures of Persepolis, the more I realized just how abstract they were.
Margaret Shisko:
I am humble in the face of these works. The artists and craftsmen who produced such beauty were not scholars, nor artists, in the modern sense of the word, but craftsmen and artisans. They had no academic studies, no modern technology or equipment, they worked simply with a hammer and chisel but produced works of such unsurpassed and enduring beauty that it is hard to match their skill.
Luckily for Simin's public her desire to create outweighs any reservations she may have had about following in the footsteps of her ancestors. She has thus taken the best of what she has learned from her Iranian predecessors and evolved her own figurative.
Public commissions include four monuments, a bear, owl, elephant and portrait, carved in 1994 from the stones at the highest point of Jamshidieh Park; "The Earth" an intriguing bronze sculpture based on the Abu-Reihan Birouni map, created in 1993 for the government pavilion at Mehr-abad International Airport; a free- from sculpture produced for the Urban Renewal Organization of Tehran in 1991; and a sculpture of a flying pigeon created in 1988 to serve as a model for the Shiraz Post Office logo. Simin contributed to four group exhibitions in Tehran between 1993 and 1998, and has enjoyed the patronage of many Iranians for private commissions.
Art is definitely a family affair in Simin's world. She is married to Bahram Dabiri , an internationally acclaimed painter, and has two children.
Simin's works can be found in Iran and North American but she continues to make her home in Tehran immersed in the rich cultural heritage of Persia.
Exhibitions:
- 1991, Group Exhibition, Visual Arts Center, Tehran
- 1992, Group Exhibition, France Embassy Cultural Bureaux, Tehran
- 1996, Group Exhibitions, Arya Gallery, Tehran
- 1998, Group Exhibitions, Pasargad Gallery, Tehran
- 1998, An Exhibition for Cancer Ills
- 2001, Group Exhibition, Haft-Tir Foundation, Tehran
- 2002, Private Exhibition, Tehran
- 2002, Group Exhibition, Germany
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