To Paint to Think

This note presents a description of my encounter with Zanbagh Lotfi’s work of painting and simultaneously endeavors to provide a framework for reading her paintings within the context of diaspora. What increasingly captures my attention in Zanbagh’s paintings is the reflection and presence of the artist’s diasporic life in her works. In contemporary discourse, the concept of diaspora can be broadly defined independently of its direct associations with political geography, territorial and racial paradigms. In this interpretation, diaspora is not merely the relocation from one territory to another. Any experience that results in a form of rupture and, consequently, a sense of identity disjunction between two spaces or times can be classified as a diasporic experience. In other words, diaspora is the experience of becoming entangled in a new situation while simultaneously striving to return to a previous state, often with a longing (though futile) for a form of stability or tranquility. The concept of stability and tranquility refers to the process of minimizing the boundaries that contribute to rupture and cultivating dynamic dialogue between two perceptual worlds. These interpretations are portrayed in art addressing migration issues, thereby constituting a genre of art that explores diaspora.

Zanbagh is a painter-bystander who understands her surrounding world through her lived experiences in the diaspora, perceiving it as a series of displacements and mobilities. Her paintings are collages of fragmented and distorted images, heterogeneous spaces, micro and interrupted narratives, varied and sometimes contradictory emotions, as well as scattered memories. Each of these elements, in a way, serves as interpreters of her transitions from one point to another, her translations from one culture to another, and consequently the juxtaposition, interpolation, or superimposition of diverse spatiotemporal worlds. Her paintings prominently feature liminal or   in-between spaces, encompassing both personal and sometimes collective memories, and represent a sense of timelessness or temporal overlap (or inter-temporal translation). In this approach, she seeks to acknowledge the interrelations between her Selves and Others in her paintings, as evident in the series “I Hang a Chandelier in My Dream of the Unknown City”, and to redefine her identities. Zanbagh’s representation of her diaspora experience and identity as a migrant in her body of works exemplifies a notable instance of the diaspora experience discussed by cultural theorist Stuart Hall in his essay “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”,

The diaspora experience as I intend it here is defined not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of identity which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and re­producing themselves anew, through transformation and difference (Hall: 235)[i].

Perhaps it is feasible to categorize Zanbagh’s body of work into three distinct yet overlapping and interconnected periods, for the sake of facilitating a clearer discussion. The first period spans from the early years of her migration around 2003 until approximately 2017. The second period began around 2017 and intensified with the onset of the pandemic, continuing until global society managed to adapt to the phenomenon of COVID-19. Lastly, the third period covers the past two to three years, characterized predominantly by the paintings from 2021 onwards.

During the first period, the migrant-painter predominantly observes her detachment from her roots and affiliations, confronting a sense of existential thrownness and a feeling of being out-of-place. In her paintings from this period, the artist is preoccupied not so much with introspective action but rather with a restless and inflammatory engagement directed towards the past. While memories are not disregarded in Zanbagh’s other works, they assume particular significance in this period regarding their revisitation and juxtaposition with the artist’s present circumstances in imagining and constructing a homeland, albeit within a new context. Thus, these paintings, replete with fragmented and heterogeneous elements, intertwine aspects from two realms: the familiar homeland and the unfamiliar host land. In this context, diverse spatiotemporal worlds converge. Multiple perspectives coexist in juxtaposition with each other; recognizable spaces such as corridors, bridges, underground passages, railway tracks, stairs, iron attics, interiors, and cityscapes intersect concurrently with the artist’s intangible mental spaces (imperceptible to the viewer). In these works, we observe the migrant artist striving to articulate a sense of self within a new and unfamiliar environment, which she represents in her paintings. Her transcultural identity evolves further, continuously encountering new interpretations of the spaces she inhabits as time progresses. Within these frames, the migrant is perpetually in transition across borders: the border between times past and times present, the border between the Selves and Others, the cognitive border between her existence today and yesterday. This incessant transition places her in a translational predicament, necessitating the painter to engage continuously in translation between two languages (semiotic systems), two lands, two cultures, and generally, two spatiotemporal spaces. The painter-bystander, during this period, is a lost in translation.

Despite the predominantly monochromatic color palette and suspenseful colors that characterized her earlier works in recent years, Zanbagh’s second period distinctly embraces phosphorescent colors and varied hues. In contrast to the preceding period, the paintings of this phase are characterized by reduced figurative elements and a heightened emphasis on abstraction. They display increased pictorial complexity and a variety of layers, portraying spaces that are more remote, less decipherable, and more eclectic in nature. As these spaces are articulated through their turbulence and turmoil, they appear more challenging for the painter to depict and, arguably, even more inscrutable and impenetrable for their audience. These paintings seem neither closer to the present nor tethered to the past; rather, they reside more within the threshold of borders where the migrant painter-bystander undergoes a transition from one state of existential awareness to another.

According to the artist herself, the paintings from her recent years (the third period), including those selected for the exhibition “I Hang a Chandelier in My Dream of the Unknown City”, serve as meditations on her own existential identity. During this period of her career, the artist’s paintings are characterized by a more concise and restricted composition. Notably, the inclusion of diverse urban landscapes, natural scenery, abandoned or residential interior spaces, and frequently recurring figures derived from commemorative photographs or the artist’s reminiscences is minimized within the content of the paintings. Instead, the focus within the painting frames shifts prominently towards exploring a richer palette of colors. The presence of various colors with high contrast, the arrangement of color patches across the surfaces of the canvases, and the use of multiple shades and highlights collectively contribute to transforming more concrete spaces into a more abstract and expressionistic ambiance. This approach represents the mental-perceptual spaces of the migrant painter. The figures in these paintings are predominantly self-portraits of the painter, appearing either in human form or as a gazelle. All other elements within each frame, including non-self-portrait figures and spaces, serve to represent the subjectivity of the migrant-painter.

“I Hang a Chandelier in My Dream of the Unknown City” represents the culmination of Zanbagh’s diasporic experience during a particular period of Iran’s socio-political history, which has increasingly driven her to reflect on her relationship with her homeland and the events transpiring therein. In other words, these paintings constitute an exploration of the migrant’s relationships with the unfolding events in her surrounding milieu. Thus, the paintings consistently incorporate self-referential elements that reflect the artist’s current introspections and existential musings. It could be said that the paintings in this collection predominantly resonate with the present, with considerations of the past arising only as they are compelled by current circumstances. This is when previously, in paintings where Zanbagh explored the re-creation and representation of the diasporic world, it was chiefly the present moment that was defined through references to Zanbagh’s past experiences.

Another notable distinction observed in Zanbagh’s later works is the incorporation of small frames which she aptly refers to as work-notes. Indeed, these small works serve as her daily notes on the tumultuous conditions of her native land during a particular historical period. In her work-notes, the contemporary migrant’s subjectivity intersects with scenes derived from media reports on the current conditions in her homeland, constructing a visual space where the migrant engages in observation and contemplation of the current state. These works can be characterized as stuttering descriptions, fragmentary thoughts, or disjointed micro-narratives that are later layered onto larger canvases, offering a more comprehensive narrative (albeit only in relation to work-notes) of a nonlinear history. In this manner, they represent, in a deep abstraction, the process the migrant has undergone in the diaspora, away from her homeland, with all its tumultuous complexities.

The prioritization of the present, as previously noted, can also be observed within the work-notes themselves. The function of memory in the paintings of this collection is designed to respond to the artist’s inner turmoil and anxiety when confronting the current state of her homeland. For example, within this collection, there is a small frame depicting a fragment of a birthday photograph of the migrant-artist in her childhood. This image is engulfed in flames and enveloped by a chaotic array of high-contrast, suspenseful, and ambiguous colors, gradually dissolving into erasure. This frame is juxtaposed with another, also depicting a grim and decaying scene. In this context, childhood becomes a metaphor for the migrant’s past, with the past symbolizing the homeland—a homeland whose coherence has become a mere illusion; a homeland (or identity) disintegrating before the migrant’s very eyes. The situation we observe in “I Hang a Chandelier in My Dream of the Unknown City” recalls Homi K. Bhabha’s explanation of the act of remembering in Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. He describes the act of remembering as a process of intense discovery and disorientation, stating: ” Remembering is never a quiet act of introspection or retrospection. It is a painful re-membering, a putting together of the dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present” (Bhabha: 90)[ii].

In conclusion, from my perspective, Zanbagh’s aesthetic approach as a migrant artist is in constructing spaces evoking Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space. The scholar believes that through distancing from essentialism and residing in the borderlands between cultures, a third culture can emerge which blends elements of the past and present with an independent and unbiased identity. In this Third Space, the immigrant can continuously redefine themselves anew, not through transcultural exotism, but by engaging deeply in the construction of cultural hybridity and the différance of identity. Thus, they persistently create new worlds through their translational agency. My engagement with Zanbagh’s artworks parallels with reading the margins of history, albeit not in a linear historical sense but within the framework of New Historicism. I interpret the reuse of diary entries and their artistic representation on a broader frame in scale, akin to a form of (re)painting as rethinking. These works do not assert a definitive interpretation of the present circumstances; instead, they are mere misreadings, in poststructuralist terms, that may leave rhizomatic traces in historical narratives.

(n)iki shadloo, 2024 June

[i] Hall, Stuart (1990) ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’. In Jonathan Rutherford (ed) Identity: community, culture, difference, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 222–37. (235)

[ii] Bhabha, Homi K. (2004), The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 90.