Sahar’s Exhibition Reception video. This exhibition was held in New York 2019
2020-11-11 10:19:50
Khalkhalian does not treat her work as a job. Rather, she endeavors to work only when she feels truly inspired; be it jubilantly happy or utterly devastated. By only working at these times, she is able to keep her work raw and genuine, capturing the emotions she is trying to convey as she is feeling them instead of searching for them when she wants them.
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Sahar was written about in the The Woven tale press magazine after her exhibition in New York
2020-11-11 10:07:18
In the WTP Spotlight:
Sahar Khalkhalian is an Iranian-born artist currently residing in Canada whose work explores powerful and traumatic themes including separation, isolation, as well as loss of humanity and identity.
“In my current series, the Naked Immigrants, I explore the loss of identity immigrants go through when they are forced to leave their homes and dive into the unknown. Immigrants go through such hardship and pain that it often leads them to become mere shells of humans experiencing a severe loss in identity. For example, immigrants lose their language—their mother language turns into something personal and to be hidden within the dark walls of their own home. Their voices are silenced, their identities are stripped, and they are forced to restart their lives completely naked. Immigration is a concept that is dearly personal to me as it is something I have been through throughout my life. The figures I have featured in these paintings are symbolic representations of this loss of identity. The sculpted blank faces on the canvas, the clinging of the figures to each other, and the covered-up mouths representing the forced silence.
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Sahar’s personal Art-Mine Page with all her work, paintings, and background
2020-11-11 09:43:32
Sahar Khalkhalian
My Iranian culture is continuously at a tug of war between modernism and traditional values. Although I have traveled all around the world, I am still an Iranian woman in my roots. We are all stuck between traditional Persian values and our desire to achieve a more modern outlook and lifestyle, which is evident in all of my work.
My work is based on my observations of people who are isolated, both physically and mentally. Lack of attachment and dependency helped me discover a new sense of self. My current body of work focuses on figures that have gradually stepped out of isolation, and the austerity while focusing on myself, is to explore the issue of solitude and loneliness. My whole purpose is to try and express to my audience the deeply rooted feelings and messages that are hard to say out loud. There is nothing more gratifying than watching those observe your work and being able to tell from the expression on their faces that they too are feeling what I am feeling and that they understand.
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Fall Equinox: A Collective Exhibition, Agora Gallery, New York
2019-10-05 12:19:29
SAHAR KHALKHALIAN
Fall Equinox: A Collective Exhibition
September 17 – October 8, 2019, Agora Gallery, New York
Reception: Thursday, September 19, 2019 6-8 PM
Sahar Khalkhalian is an Iranian-born artist currently residing in Canada whose work explores powerful and traumatic themes including separation, isolation, as well as loss of humanity and identity. As a child, Khalkhalian experienced the 8 year Iran-Iraq War where she saw firsthand just how easily an individual’s humanity and identity could be shattered or ripped away to become only a fleeting memory for those who manage to survive. Following this, She and her sister immigrated to Germany at the age of 13, where she again had to experience the loss of identity and feelings of isolation that are common to immigrants in an alien culture.As a result Khalkhalian’s paintings center directly on expressing these feelings to the viewer which are so hard to express with words alone.
Khalkhalian does not treat her work as a job. Rather, she endeavors to work only when she feels truly inspired; be it jubilantly happy or utterly devastated. By only working at these times, she is able to keep her work raw and genuine, capturing the emotions she is trying to convey as she is feeling them instead of searching for them when she wants them.
“Shadow of my Grandfather: Houshang Pezeshknia ”
2016-05-07 00:00:00
compiled by Sahar Khalkhalian.
The book is a complete monograph about life and time of Houshang Pezeshknia, Pioneer Modern Iranian Painter with introductions by Ebrahim Golestan, Najaf Darya Bandari and Ali Bakhtiari. The book includes variety of works such as his very early paintings, Illustrations and graphic design works, South Paintings and rarely seen archival material.
The launch will coincide a talk in the gallery with Javad Mojabi, Shahrouz Mohajer and Ali Bakhtiari.
CONTEXT Art Miami - Photos
2015-12-13 11:59:11
Shirin Gallery at CONTEXT Art Miami
2015-11-30 13:16:46
Shirin Gallery is returning to CONTEXT Art Miami this December. The exhibition will feature works by Masoumeh Abirinia, Afsoon, Fereydoun Ave, Mahmoud Hamadani, Hadi Hazavei, Sahar Khalkhalian, Ali Kourechian, Angela Larian, Adel Hosseini Nik, Hooman Nobakht, Farnaz Rabieijah, Mahmood Sabzi, and Ali Akbar Sadeghi.
The CONTEXT Art Miami Pavilion Midtown | Wynwood Arts District
2901 NE 1st Avenue Miami, FL 33137
Preview: December 1st, 5:30pm – 10pm
Fair: December 2nd – 5th, 11am – 8pm & 6th, 11am-6pm
TURBULENT, SOLO PAINTING EXHIBITION, Opening photos
2015-11-28 14:19:21
TURBULENT, SOLO PAINTING EXHIBITION
2015-11-22 14:07:42
Opening: October 30th From: 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm
October 30th to November 11th, 2015
The Turbulent Series started for me in a period of my artistic and personal life where I went into a phase of isolation, and omitted certain things from my thought and life. Lack of attachment and dependency, helped me discover a new sense of self.
These series of my paintings are figures that gradually stepped out of isolation, and the austerity while focusing on myself, is to explore the issue of isolation and loneliness.
My paintings are my observations of people who are isolated physically and mentally even in the crowd.
Turbulent series in my life was a way to escape from the impasse I dealt in my life, my paintings are my means to portrait this feeling.
Sahar Khalkhalian
Fall 2015
Photographer Newsha Tavakolian takes us through the looking glass.
2015-11-21 12:26:57
Sahar Khalkhalian, a painter, finishes her artwork days before her solo exhibition opens at Shirin Art Gallery, that also has a space in NewYork City.
Time.com
MEN AND WOMEN TO MY EYES
2010-11-22 14:13:14
“Houshang Pezeshknia was one of only three or four artists who introduced modern painting into Iranian art after August 1929. Awareness and understanding that is prevalent in today’s contemporary art scene is indebted to his work.
Many years prior to his death in 1972, Houshang Pezeshknia lived in recluse. He not only did not exhibit his works, but also did not take orders or even sell any of his art pieces. That is why the younger generation either didn’t get to know him or simply forgot about him.”
After Pezeshknia’s death, artists and art lovers who had seen his art pieces here and there, or had studied them and had written about them (such as Najaf Daryabandari, whose excerpt is reproduced in the first two paragraphs of this article), managed to entice Pezeshknia’s family to provide his art pieces to the public. Steadily, his art took its deserved place in Iranian art history. It would suffice to see only a few of his drawings and/or paintings in order to recognize his style under any condition.
Using Pezeshknia’s style and excellent technique for Sahar Khalkhalian, Pezeshknia’s granddaughter, is more natural and even more acceptable than anyone else’s because she has lived and bonded with every one of her grandfather’s brush strokes. This is in addition to the fact that in addition to being influenced by Pezeshknia, one can see obvious pursuit and exploration in her work. It is not far fetched to imagine witnessing another Pezeshknia in Sahar who has achieved her very own personal style after dedicated and maddeningly hard work.
Mohhamad Zahraei
