Shiva Ahmadi – Tangle at Shoshana Wayne

First thing that pulled me into Shiva Ahmadi’s Tangle exhibition were the pressure cookers. It took me a moment to recognize them: from a distance, they appeared as intricate decorative objects and archaeological relics simultaneously. While the vintage pressure cookers evoked associations of domestic warmth and memories of my grandma’s kitchen, their surfaces etched with Arabic calligraphy and floral ornamentation recall artifacts from a Persian or Arabic cultural heritage museum. The patience and meticulous craft of such engraving parallels the labor of generations of women who spent countless hours in the kitchen crafting their family’s meals.

A closer examination reveals a more complex narrative. The delicate etching gradually transforms into corrosion, with ornate patterns dissolving into gaping holes. Peering through these openings are nails entangled with string – transforming these objects of domestic warmth into terrorist bombs. This metamorphosis of an emotionally loaded object into another with a polar opposite emotional charge delivers both a visceral punch and a complex meditation on family, tradition, violence, religion, and politics as seen through the lens of the Iranian-born artist who grew up in the shadow of the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War.

While the pressure cookers concentrate the emotional intensity in the room, the surrounding watercolor paintings allow for some lightness and breathing space. More intimate and intuitive compared to the context-loaded sculptures, these works draw from Persian miniature traditions in their intricate detail and book-page-like hanging yet remain distinctly contemporary. They bring to mind other great women artists who have embraced the water element in their work, such as Eva Hesse and Wangechi Mutu.

All of the paintings feature nude female figures that float, hover, and dance within dreamy color fields. There is a sense of freedom, sensuality, and naturality in them. Often, the figure’s hair becomes the center of the painting, a primal entity with its own volition and desires. The figures are sensual but not sexualized; they seem to move free from an observer’s gaze. Frequently interacting with plants and animals, these women appear part of the natural world—presenting a utopian vision of uninhibited existence that stands in stark contrast with the religion-imposed patriarchal control of the female body.

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In the gallery’s back room, an animated video is playing. Again, nodding to tradition and perhaps nostalgia, the animation comprises 5,172 hand-painted frames executed in Ahmadi’s signature fluid watercolor style. In it, workers laboriously construct a pathway to a stranded oil tanker, stone by stone, across a rocky terrain. Upon completion of their path, predatory figures emerge from hiding, seizing the tanker and departing, leaving the builders wounded and abandoned on the shore.

Through this work, Ahmadi applies her poetic aesthetic to retell a timeless human narrative of power takeover, exploitation, and community destruction. The animation synthesizes the culture-specific symbolism of her sculptures with the poetic and fluid world-building characteristic of her paintings, creating a powerful meditation on collective struggle and systemic violence.

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All photos courtesy of Shoshana Wayne Gallery

Shiva Ahmadi – Tangle at Shoshana Wayne till Dec 21st

About the writer: Vita Eruhimovitz is a Los Angeles-based artist and an occasional curator and writer. Through her work, she navigates the tri-lingual mind and non-conceptual states of being. Vita’s background in science and technology inspires and informs her interest in the intersection of biological life and consciousness. Vita holds a BFA from Shenkar College and an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont, the San Diego Art Institute Museum, the Museum of Design Holon in Israel, the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, and the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis. Her work is in private and public collections in the US and abroad.@vita_eruhimovitz