Farah Ossouli

Shirin Gallery is pleased to present The Moon and the Sun, a solo exhibition by Farah Ossouli, from June 28 to July 10, 2019. The Moon and the Sun features Shirin Gallery’s ongoing engagement withFarah Ossouli, congruent with the gallery’s focus on unexplored perspectives within modern and contemporary artistic movements. This exhibition explores a series of works that have been executed between 1983-1988, and now revived as silkscreen print with the artists signature. This exhibition also unveils a limited edition of thirty silkscreen books, individually signed by the artist.
Ossouli was one of the first artists to appropriate miniature paintings as an authentic, personal, and contemporary artistic expression to portray women’s lives.
Ossouli’s style evolved over three decades after the 1979 revolution and cultural isolation in Iran. Searching for a meaningful form of self-expression, she found it in the rich tradition and refined beauty of Persian paintings, architecture, and decorative arts. The impassive look of miniature figures was well suited to her universal themes of female and male protagonists.
Born in 1953 in Zanjan, Iran, she graduated from Tehran High School of Fine Arts (Honarestane Honarhaye Ziba) in 1971, and received her B.A. from the Department of Fine Arts (Daneshkadeye Honaryae Ziba), Tehran University, Iran in 1977. After 1979, it propelled Ossouli to pioneer and revitalize miniature paintings, which was one of the many genres she had studied in art school as a painter.
Ossouli’s work is widely recognized for its innovative form, exhibiting internationally in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, North America, and Asia. Her works is widely collected, most recently by the Metropolitan Museum Of Art (New York, US), Devi Art Foundation (New Delhi, IN), Bank Of Pasargad (Tehran, IR), Imam Ali Religious Arts Museum (Tehran, IR), Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (Tehran, IR), Tropen Museum (Amsterdam, NE), Ludwig Museum (Koblenz, DE), and the Koran Museum (Tehran, IR), LACMA Museum (California, US), British Museum (London, ENG).