Malahat Mohebkhah

Malahat Mohebkhah, born in 1987 is an Iranian artist and painter born and raised in the city of Rasht. She earned her BA in painting from the Isfahahn University of Art and her MA in painting from the University of Art, Tehran. Her first bodies of work, titled Limbo and Schema, were presented in 2013 at Aria and Shirin Galleries. Her series the Tempered Ones and the installation A Memorial for a Disappearing City were exhibited in 2019 at ShirinGallery in Tehran. Her most recent solo exhibition, titled Remembrance: Love and Grief, was held at Choom Gallery in the city of Anzali. She has also participated in a wide range of group exhibitions since 2012 and in 2015, she was awarded the Parviz Maleki Prize at the 8th Annual Montakhab-e Nasl-e No. Through an exploration of the interplay between human relationships, time and place, Malahat has positioned the concept of memory at the core of her visual word. Malahat is an experimental artist, which is evident in her use of diverse materials such as acrylic, oil paint, and vitreous paint, as well as various surfaces including plexiglass, chiffon fabric, and canvas. Her visual experiences often develop towards creating meaningful relationships between the subject, the material, and the installation. . The use of transparency and reflection in Malahat’s works is influenced by the metaphor of clear, mirror-like water as a means to observe the inner self, and it alludes to temporal changes and existential instability. Her expressionistic style raises questions regarding the emotions and inner experiences of the figures in the situations they encounter. In her Remembrance project, she constructs the network of recollections and employs the diffusion of color on chiffon to structure geometric relationships among visual elements. By rendering faces and images both clear and blurred, she represents the connections and their fragmentation within the corridors of mind and time, emphasizing the boundaries of perception and the layers of memory. Her works comprise portraits and figures of her close acquaintances, depicted within a composition of rivers, seas, bridges, and houses, arranged in repetitive layers, reflecting the artist`s inclination toward creating a metaphorical space. The element of water in Limbo, Schema, Zendehroud and the Tempered Ones series not only serves as a medium for human interactions and conflicts but, by referring to the geography of rivers (Zayandeh Rud, Gohar Rud) and the sea of the artist’s living region (the Caspian Sea), simultaneously organizes a personal and collective condition. Malahat lives and works in the city of Rasht and is currently focused on Remembrance project.