Maryam Majd Art Projects (MMAP)

“Places I’d Like to Be”

Exhibition of Paintings by Azarakhsh Asgari
10 – 29 October 2025

Maryam Majd Art Projects (MMAP) presents “Places I’d Like to Be”, a private exhibition of 28 oil paintings by Azarakhsh Asgari, on view from 10 to 29 October 2025.

These works mark a significant shift in Asgari’s practice. For nearly two decades, her paintings were primarily figurative. In recent years, however, figures began to fade from her compositions, giving way to still lifes and semi-abstract scenes.

This transition unfolded over years of experimentation and introspection. After two decades of figurative work rooted in family photographs, which provided a familiar visual foundation for exploring composition, figure, and narrative—initially sketched and then transformed—Asgari developed subsequent series, including paintings of brides and pregnant women, further investigating complex compositions and intricate depictions of clothing, makeup, and light.

During the politically charged atmosphere of 2009, she moved from canvases to smaller, more personal works on paper, sketching daily impressions of her surroundings and self-portraits. In her 2021 exhibition “An Odd Autobiographical Habit”, a self-portrait enclosed in a cube-like form reminiscent of a pool marked a turning point in her approach to figuration. Over time, human figures receded—sometimes absent, sometimes overshadowed by surrounding objects—until her attention turned entirely to pared-down arrangements reimagined from found images on social media.

The new ongoing series was developed between 2022 and 2025, a period marked by anxiety, unrest, and broader social upheavals. Painting became a stabilizing practice, allowing Asgari to regain focus during personal and collective crises. Even in moments of extreme tension, including war, she turned to still lifes featuring elements such as bottles, cups, candlesticks, tablecloths, and seascapes. Many works employ vivid, unexpected colors—pinks, neon greens, and other sharp contrasts—that project surface brightness while carrying the weight of their time.

Recurring motifs include pools, seas, and water surfaces, drawn from Asgari’s recurring dreams of bathing in or being surrounded by water, evoking both personal identification and emotional refuge. These motifs have also guided her toward abstraction and suggest painting as an imagined escape. Often minimal in composition, the works feature only a few objects set within expanses of open space, offering contemplative retreats from the turbulence and tension of everyday life.

All of the works are painted primarily in oil, a medium Asgari favors for its flexibility and slow-drying qualities, which allow her to revise and refine details over time. She approaches painting as a form of playful exploration, where trial and error are integral to the process; failed attempts are not discarded but cut and reworked as collage material. While collage is an important aspect of her broader practice, in this series she has chosen to work exclusively with oil, allowing the paintings to develop through cycles of building, repeating, and testing possibilities until a form gradually takes shape.

Asgari’s paintings combine autobiographical reflection, memory, and imagination, producing dreamlike, layered narratives that balance personal and cultural observation. Memory in her work often corresponds with the use of photographs as points of departure, while observation stems from her sensitivity to the surrounding environment, and imagination shapes the intuitive, poetic dimension of her compositions.

Azarakhsh Asgari (b. 1982, Tehran) is an Iranian painter based in Tehran. She studied painting and has been active in the Iranian art scene for over two decades. Alongside her artistic practice, she has worked extensively in art administration, managing archives and projects at Assar Gallery and MMAP, as well as working in cultural affairs within bookshops.