SETAREH BEHBAHANI

Setareh Behbahani is a female Iranian artist, currently living in Tehran. Since her childhood she struggled with stuttering and for that reason painting became a way of expressing herself. Quoting words by Frida Kahlo, Saterah says that she attempts to ‘portray her own realism’.

Saterah graduated with a BA in Art from the Science and Culture University in Tehran. Since then, she has exhibited in over 20 exhibitions in Tehran. The works presented here, are from the series Metamorphosis and Contemporary Human Demonstration.

Working mostly with acrylic on canvas, Setareh’s artistic pursuit is driven by a need to express what she observes in the world around her. She refers to Charles Baudelaire saying that to see the universe is at the heart of the universe, and yet that core purpose seems to be hidden from the world.

By representing people within enclosed, intimate spaces, Saterah believes she can discover what is beneath “their flesh and skin”, divulging the part that is most evident within an “inner state”, where people do not have to act nor display themselves.'

Perhaps through her work, the artist is revealing the solitude that plagues us all, that may even be demanded by our existence. The suffering of that loneliness is not something we want to envelope in ourselves, and so we reach out and are touched by other bodies who appear in and out of our lives. Although the artist believes that more often than not, only the material self is touched whilst the inner self is still immersed in solitude.