Sanam Khatibi

Sanam Khatibi
Deadly Nightshade, 2020
Oil on canvas, 120 x 230 cm
From the collection of the Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Sanam Khatibi draws iconographic motifs from Persian tradition, manuscripts of the Western Middle Ages, the Flemish renaissance and global art culture in general, and combines them with painted features that reconstruct, in colour and design, the digital landscapes of video games. She thus creates strange, time-less worlds, without perspective or realistic depiction of the space, which welcome subjects inspired by BDSM culture and true crime documentaries. In her works, the power distribution between genders is always fluid and the boundaries between pain and pleasure, fear and desire are often indistinct. In Deadly Nightshade, the narrative of submission and pleasure defined by the two female figures is complemented and completed by the wordplay of the title, since the term “nightshade” may refer to either a landscape at night, or the toxic belladonna plant.

Sanam Khatibi’s work consists of paintings, embroideries, tapestries, and sculptures and is revolving around the notions of chaos, destruction, excess, loss of control, bestiality, domination and submission. Her female subjects hunt, tame, or seduce the wild beasts, rather than being ravaged by them. They are the predators, the dominant figures, who are quite impulsive and playful often depicted within the same plane as the flora and fauna.

Biography

Sanam Khatibi was born in Teheran and lives and works in Brussels. She is a self taught artists. Her work has been shown at among others: “Abrasive Paradise”, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, “The Natural World”, Alexander Berggruen, New York, USA, 2022; “One Way or Another”, S.M.A.K, Gent, Brussels, “Paradise” , Biennial of Kortrijk, Kortrijk, Belgium, “Beyond the Looking Glass”, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, USA, 2021; “The Shameful Kiss”, Kunstverein Dresden, Dresden, Germany,”Tears of Eros”, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2020; “The Seventh Continent”, 16th Istanbul Biennial, Curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019; “Quel amour!?”, MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille, France. She has presented solo shows in Belgium, USA and Brazil.

https://sanamkhatibi.com/

 


 

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