TEHRAN – The Drawing Room Madrid Fair, a Spanish art exhibition underway at the Palacio Santa Bárbara, is showcasing a collection by Iranian mixed media artist Ashkan Sanei.

Sanei’s works have been selected by Tehran’s O Gallery for the online exhibition, which will run until May 30.

The gallery hung a collection of the artist’s works in an exhibition entitled “Touching at a Distance” in 2020. His artworks were also showcased in the exhibit “The Wind Bloweth Where it Listeth” at O Gallery in 2018.

His works were previously shown during the Artissima art fair in 2020 in Turin, Italy. He also attended the Art Residency project of the Qingyun International Art Center in Beijing, China, in 2017.

Sanei’s aesthetics is based on destruction and repetition. When it comes to working, however, he swings between creation and destruction as a pendulum, the organizers of the art fair said in a statement about Sanei’s artworks. 

He believes that drawing, as an untainted medium, maintains the minimum distance to the artist’s mind and provides him with the opportunity to experience at the moment. His choice of medium is paper and the traces he leaves behind represent memory and reminiscence rather than a specific object.

Poetry and geometry inspire him and bring him closer to the visual traditions and literary culture of Iran. In his artworks, he essentially rewrites what has already been said and done hundreds of times in his own contemporary language.

Nineteen galleries from 11 countries are participating in the International Online Drawing Room Madrid Fair, which opened on May 15. 

The galleries show for the occasion an individual exhibition of one of their artists.

Granada Gallery, Otto Galeria, AC Contemporary and (+ Gallerylabs, all from Buenos Aires, are attending the exhibition with works by Jon Burgerman, Mane Zorraquin, Ana Elisa Fernández and Liliana Livneh.

From Berlin, Feldebusch Wiesner Rudolph, Anaid Art Gallery and Lage Egal are showcasing works by Nicola Staeglich, Alexandru Radvan and Peter Freitag.

The exhibition is also displaying works by Ze de Rocha, Luis Silveirinha, Ernesto Casero, Valentin van der Meulen, Marco La Rocca, Francesco Casolari, Miwako Nagaoka, Susanna Inglada, Conceição Abreu, Catarina Patricio and Feliks Culpa.

Photo: A mixed media and paper-cut on paper from Iranian artist Ashkan Sanei’s 2021 series “A Long Exhausted Summer” on display at the Drawing Room Madrid Fair.

MMS/YAW