Ode to Love (portrait of Marzieh)

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Downing Street

This painting depicts Persian singer Khadijeh Ashraf o-Sadat Mortzaie (1924–2010). Echoing Tudor portraits and Persian miniatures, Mortzaie is portrayed in regal dress, adorned with glistening jewellery, against an abstract background. This geometric pattern calls to mind the ornamented interiors of Islamic architecture, which are supposed to emphasise the presence of God. Here Sokhanvari adopts these abstract backdrops to foreground female talent. Sokhanvari’s subject, Marzieh, became a household name in pre-revolutionary Iran. She was known for her expressive interpretations of songs of love. Her first major public performance was in 1942, while still a teenager, and, in the subsequent years, she performed for many world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II.

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, public performances and radio broadcasts were banned outright. Merzieh was called to Evin Prison and forced to sign a letter of penitence. In 1994, while visiting Paris, she defected. Marzieh later joined the controversial Mojahedin-e-Khalgh opposition movement in Iraq, which advocated the overthrow of the Iranian government.

Sokhanvari has a long-standing interest in the depiction of Iranian female stars of the pre-1979 era. Each small painting in egg tempera takes up to twelve weeks to complete; she grinds her own pigments. Sokhanvari renders the women’s faces and bodies in greyscale, emphasising their remoteness, and simultaneously memorialising them in stone.

Soheila Sokhanvari (born 1995, Shiraz, Iran), a studio artist at Wysing Arts Centre since 2013, received her BA in Art History and Fine Arts from Anglia Ruskin University in 2005, a postgraduate diploma in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design and an MFA from Goldsmiths in 2011. She was the Derek Hill Foundation Scholar at the British School at Rome in 2018 and has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East. Recent solo exhibitions include Rebel, Rebel, The Curve, Barbican Centre, 2022/23; Addicted to Love, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, 2019; and LDWN, an installation at Victoria Station, London, a collaboration between the Tate Collective and City Hall, 2018. She had a solo show at Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge University, in 2024. Her work is in international private and public collections, including LACMA, USA; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; The New Art Gallery Walsall; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Murray Edwards College, Cambridge; and Pallant House Gallery.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

Artist

Soheila Sokhanvari (1964 - )

Title

Ode to Love (portrait of Marzieh)

Date

2023

Medium

Egg tempera on calf vellum, 22.9ct gold on the neckline

Dimensions

height: 35.40 cm; width: 30 cm; depth: 3.8 cm

Provenance

Purchased from Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, April 2023

GAC number

19169