Press report from 25.11.2002

Evangelist town church federation Cologne, 20. March 2004:

"Floating"- an exhibition by Mahmoud Mirzaie
in The Church Of  Reconciliation in Lechenich

Image above : "Autumnal water"

Corresponding to the season the visitors of the Church Of The Reconciliation in Lechenich receive a “feeling of autumn”.The illuminating yellow of the Narzissen is still exceeded by the satisfying red of the tulips sea.

Yet irritation adjusts itself.

Some of the flowers seem as if they have been bound and executed  like humans onto the stake. The ground seems soaked by their blood. This small format comes from  Mahmoud Mirzaie, the painter and calligrapher, born 1949 in Abadan, Iran , who also works as a sculptor, director, actor and a mime, who had to leave his home country  due to political reasons in 1986. Since then he lives in Germany, for some years in Brühl. The ambivalent impression of his painting is strengthened by the Persian letters, which lay blood-red on the landscape. They form the title of an Iranian spring song which welcomes the end of the Shah regime. But the hopes of many Iranians for liberty and democracy were disappointed. Also in the following Islamic Republic countless “different-thinking” people, in their circles often celebrated as martyrs, lose their lives.

Mirzaie calls his exhibition "Floating", in where he shows painting and calligraphy which is a highly rated art of beautiful writing in Iran. However he is not only concerned about the fusion of these two art forms, he is interested in the deeper connection of design and contents. His work in ink, oil, water color or mixed technique is mainly based on poetry and literature of others and himself. Within this he does not only refer to classical Persian poets such as Rumi, Sa´adil (both 13th Century) and of Goethe and Nietzsche’s admired Hafiz (14th Century), he also dedicates himself to modern poets such as Nima Juschidj or Mehdi Achawan Sales from the 20th Century. His art is founded on political and scientific lyrics and on mystical and philosophical wisdoms.

These transcripts, in particular of the Persian culture get a visual translation through Mirzaie’s work. He unravels the mood of the written language through colors and forms and thereby develops its own poetry which is full of beauty, ease and at the same time depth. His painted poems at times seem just magical like when he composes a calm, autumnal water landscape from the letters of the Persian word “ab” (water) or when he confronts a yellow-red colored, autumnal small forest with a white-blue, quiet winter version. In other pieces he criticizes social conditions, ignorance and a lack of awareness for the need of others. So he interprets Nima’s poetry: “Oh, you who sit there on the shore, laughing and making merry-somebody in the water is fighting for his life.” in his painting “Cry under Water”, where in the midst of a contemplative scene painted in sunny colors Mirzaie confronts us with the unheard survival fight of a drowning

In his recent pieces in two large formats he alters Goethe's poem: “the soul of humans for two large sizes that resembles water, eternally changing…” by painting and calligraphy in German and part Persian: “…Soul of men, how you resemble the water, fate of men, how you resemble the wind” - under the blue sky the sea waves break at a coast rock, and the spray climbs high up, from the wind blown.

Mirzaie tries to transfer written poetry and literature into generally understandable images. Thereby occasionally the unawareness of the Persian language actually makes the entrance to individual motives and thereby their complete interpretation more difficult. Nevertheless in general the view of Mirzaie’s art does not require the knowledge of the language he uses, his work first addresses our emotions. The seeing is meant to stimulate, create moods and through the reflection of what’s presented, finally leads to understanding and realization. “My ambition is to create a complex piece of art through the fusion of writing, color and pictorial forms”, says Mirzaie, “so that people from other cultures can learn how to know and to understand with their hearts”. In other words: beyond all cultural and linguistic limitations the artist pursues the aim of a peaceful community, a “peace through love”.

Text and phtography: Engelbert Broich