TEHRAN – A solo exhibition of artworks by Bita Fayyazi is underway at the Plus 2 (Deh Vanak) Gallery in Tehran.

Titled “What Remains,” the exhibition brings together a series of collages, paintings, and drawings on paper created using diverse techniques such as pastel, watercolor, ink, acrylic, and colored pencil. The exhibition also includes a group of small ceramic sculptures.

Bita Fayyazi, 64, is an Iranian visual artist and pioneer in the field of Iranian public art projects. She is known for her theatrical, large-scale work. Fayyazi lives and teaches at a private studio in Tehran.

However, in the aftermath of the recent US-Israel war against Iran and its consequences, she stopped making sculptures for several months. During this period, she visited her studio only to tend to the space, while a small room in her home became a place for drawing and painting.

Rather than working out of enthusiasm, she continued her artistic practice through discipline, insisting on recording each day in some form.

With the internet entirely cut off (for about three months earlier this year), the continuous stream of images broadcast on television became her only connection to the outside world. These images entered her daily life, forming both a subject of observation and a means of recording lived experience.

At the center of the exhibition, nearly 50 ceramic sculptures created before the recent events are arranged on a long plinth. In them, color and form take precedence over representation. At first glance, the sculptures appear to be organic, vividly colored shapes; upon closer inspection, they reveal themselves to be a sleeping cat, a rider on horseback, or a woman with the head of an eagle.

The two-dimensional works emerge through a similar process. As continuous brushstrokes and dense hatching unfold across the surface, the forms of a dog, a human figure, or even a flowering branch gradually become visible. Still in progress, the series continues to grow as an archive of memory, encounter, and the persistence of artistic practice under conditions of crisis.

In the showroom, Fayyazi presents “What Remains,” an installation constructed from discarded cardboard boxes. Facing the installation, a stop-motion animation is projected onto the wall, reimagining the same structure in a state suspended between presence and absence.

Also included in the exhibition is a portrait of Bahman Mohassess by Mehdi Vishkaei (1921–2006), presented from Fayyazi’s personal collection. It is shown alongside two collages by the artist featuring portraits of Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) and Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010). Together, these works pay tribute to figures whose ideas and artistic approaches have had a lasting influence on Fayyazi’s intellectual development and artistic practice.

Fayyazi has more than 15 years of work experience in the fields of ceramics and sculpture, with much of her work categorized as “dark ceramics” due to the subject matter. She lived in England for a period of seven years, and returned to Iran in 1980.

She participated in the Iranian Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, and has exhibited at, among others, Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris (2008 and 2010), the Museum of Modern Art in Freiburg (2007), and the Pergamon Museum, Berlin (2008). 

The artist has exhibited in two group exhibitions at Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, Paris, notably in Be Crowned with Laurel in Oblivion (2010) with Ramin and Rokni Haerizadeh and the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007.

The “What Remains” exhibition will run through August 14 at the Plus 2 Gallery, located at No. 40, Seoul St., Vanak St.

SS/