When a sixty year old Iranian woman, named Akram Sarkhti, illiterate, traditional, and in an arranged marriage, finds a way to create art, we all must applaud. She started painting ten years ago and poignantly portrays her hard life, her remembered childhood and all her dreams of a better future. Fortunately she has a benefactor in the name of Rokhsareh Ghaema, who is making a documentary film about Akram and trying to find a European venue in which to have an exhibition of this remarkable body of work. The film maker can be reached at the following e-mail address if any of you can help to facilitate this process. "Roxareh@yahoo.ca"
Akram was married to a 30 year old man when she was 9 years old, and her husband did not allow her to go to school. She painted to calm herself and when her son found the paintings he was astonished. Some of the work has been sold to the Tehran Contemporary Art Museum, but need to be seen by a wider audience.
The three images I have chosen to post are called My Engagement Day, My Wedding Day, and Conversation. How easily we take for granted our freedoms, and how painful to hear of our sisters in foreign lands living a feudal life in the 21st century. Two of my next door neighbors, who are women from Iran, are both highly educated and are medical doctors. A flip of the penny.......
4 comments:
Such an inspirational and touching story. Haunting art...
Art that moves the soul,it is wonderful but yet so sad. Quite amazing how such beauty can come from such negativity.
Thank you both for your words! I think of this artist often!
Her art so beautifully despicts the feeling she has about being a woman in an arranged marriage in Iran.
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