The powerful and the powerless

The research started with a Sadler’s Wells show, and it then developed in the exploration of the work of two other artists: Soheila Sokhanvari and Mária Bartuszová.

The collection “The Powerful and the Powerless” is an exploration of what it means to have agency or not.
The work of S. Sokhanvari represents miniature paintings of powerful Iranian women who escaped the regime after the 1979 revolution. Mainly female artists, most of them had to marry and end up without financial independence due to the patriarchal Iranian regime’s laws, some risking or losing their lives.
The style of Sohelia’s S. images is powerful, colourful, pleasantly busy, energetic, and cartoon-like.
Maria B.’s art is, in contrast, mainly all in white. Her most famous pieces are sculptures of eggshell-like pieces, spherical, and soft but equally structurally resistant. Her art wants to portray cycles of beginning and end, of the season, of relationships the continuous transformation of forms.

These 2 ideas of The Powerful and the Powerless mix in the collection with items which are busy, rich in colour, and powerfully feminine, with others which are simpler and rounded in shape.

This series wants to celebrate femininity in all shapes and forms and the idea that the roles are somehow interchangeable depending on the point of view. This body of work is an introduction and will be expanded later in the year. This part is called Chapter 1.