Artist Converation #4: The Expected (Mahsa Soroudi)

Artist Information:
Name: Mahsa Soroudi
Media: Photography
Gallery: Own Website
Social Media: Website

About the Artist:
Mahsa Soroudi is an independent artist who graduated from the Azad Art and Architecture University in Tehran with a BFA in Visual Communication.

Formal Analysis:
This photograph is of the top of a house through the trees and window of another house. The main source of color is the background features, with the foreground featuring only a set of blackened blinds. The colors that are present are realistic, as it is a photograph. There are three sets of blinds, which separate the picture into four parts. In the photograph, it appears to be the season of fall or winter, as the trees are somewhat barren in appearance and empty of life.

Content Analysis:
One of Mahsa’s core passions is to introduce the community to new and up-and-coming artists who have previously been disregarded. This art piece symbolizes that in the division foreground and background in the photo. In the foreground, the object that draws attention the most is the tree that primarily occupies the top and second to top sections, a withered tree laid low by winter. This tree symbolizes the overexposed artists who currently lay at the top of the food chain, and as a result are missing their leaves and color from all the attention. However, in the background stands several evergreen-like trees that stand vibrant yet out of focus. Those trees represent the contemporary artists who have been passed over by critics and art reviewers, while offering up both color and life. This contrast is what Soroudi might have been trying to capture, as fits her passion.

Synthesis:
The most interesting part of this art display to me had to have been the blinds that frame the entire picture. To me, this is very similar to the in class activity we had, where we found a place to put up a tape picture frame, and drew attention to certain objects from certain angles. Often times in my Literature class in high school, my teacher would quote the phrase “Art imitates life, and life imitates Art”, and I think that that quote accurately reflects this photograph, as this photograph is that of life itself, distilled into an art form, and yet that life is somehow also a commentary on Art as a whole. And to me its the blinds that draw attention to this distinction.