Art • Mehri
Dadgar, an Iranian artist living
in America, displays her work. She
will
be at Cal State Long Beach until
Thursday. Her work has been shown
in Canada,
Sweden, Texas, and she is planning
to show her work in Cambridge,
England. Tracey Roman / Online Forty-Niner
Iranian artist shows work, shares life experiences
By Julie Sparkuhl
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Mehri Dadgar, an Iranian artist living in America, is displaying her work at
Cal State Long Beach until Thursday.
Dadgar’s work depicts her experiences
from imprisonment in Iran.
Her work has been shown in Canada, Sweden, Texas, and she is planning to show
her work in Cambridge, England.
Dadgar has her master’s degree and is now
earning a master’s in fine arts through the college in Art Studio;
however, her true taste of the art world began in a competition in her country.
“
It was a competition for all painters, and [they] choose the best pieces. I was
one of the women in the competition,” Dadgar said.
She first began her art when she was 12 years old. She said the painting class
was not that important to other students, but it was important to her. Because
she was so good at it, she would draw for her classmates, repeating the picture
several times because they wanted to get a good grade.
When she was 17 she became serious about her art. She started buying oil paintings
and canvas to do the paintings.
Dadgar grew up in Iran, where she both studied and taught art.
Dadgar said she has always been politically active. In her early 20s, the new
Shah government of Iran failed to keep promises to improve education and civil
rights in Iran, so Dadgar joined the revolution against them and protested. Yet
the revolution did not work out and Dadgar was sent to prison for passing out
pamphlets.
Dadgar was 22 years old when she went to Evin, the main political prison in Iran.
She stayed in prison for five years and finally got out when she was 27. During
her time in prison, she could only see her family twice a month and only behind
the glass.
“
Always they came, always they support. My mother and father lived in a different
city and always [made the] six-hour drive,” Dadgar said.
Once she was out of the prison it was difficult to find work as a teacher. No
one wanted to hire her so she taught privately with students.
Dadgar came to America about 11 years ago with her now ex-husband. Dadgar
said her husband didn’t want her to study art.
“
He was very controlling and didn’t want me to be in a professional
field,” she said. “ I didn’t want to stop doing art.”
When she came to America she was able to expand her education and display
her artwork. One creation of her work is the “Prison Pictures,” a circle
of pictures that depict her prison life and other women who were there. Audiences
have to walk around the circle to see all the pictures Dadgar has made. The “Prison
Pictures” have many women”blind-folded”in black and others
are being tortured. Instead of using red to express the blood, Dadgar used
green.
“
One reason is I didn’t want to hurt people’s feeling, and they see
a familiar color blood. Red is known element as blood.” Dadgar
said.
The rest of her collection depicts her life and times in prison. She said
she wants people to see all things in her life. Dadgar also considers herself
an
international person and doesn’t believe in borders and countries.
In her art work,
Dadgar wants people to see that the first thing everybody is looking for is adding
something to their lives.
“
When we show something to people, I think we should add to it, not take away.
So even for those political prisoners’ pictures, I’m not really showing
them to critics Iranian regime. I want to show an experience in human history,” Dadgar
said.
In the”“The Miniatures” two pictures have the same message,”“There
is no God except God.”
“
It’s a common thing between all religion, it’s dissolving I really
want to make it a peaceful movement to religion,” said Mehri Dadgar
or Mary.
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