TEHRAN -- Maryam Mirzaei, a 24-year-old artist, has recently graduated from the Azad University of Art & Architecture. She has so far taken part in several group exhibitions at the university with its students, and she is currently holding her first solo exhibition in the Tarrahan Azad gallery.

The themes in Mirzaei's works have been inspired by her loneliness in Tehran. She has painted her reactions towards people, towards the problems of life, either they are reasonable or unreasonable in everyday living.

The exhibition is entitled "Thousands of Dancing Passersby." She believes that life is an activity filled with dance. Dancing does not necessarily only convey mere happiness, it actually means living. The rhythms which exist in dancing resemble the actions, the tensions, the problems, and the sadness or happiness which exists in the process of living.

According to Mirzaei, the female figures painted in her works are depictions of the artist herself, trying to deal with the different situations and different people in her life. It can actually show the personal situation of an individual during his or her experiences in various aspects of living.

She praises the work of Leonardo da Vinci, describing him as an eminent artist and said his art inspired her drawings of figures. She also likes the impressionist artists. The shades of green found in all of her paintings and the simplicity of their form and lines are examples of her personal and instinctive interests.

The style of Mirzaei's paintings is abstract with different sizes of forms and planes in several hues of green and the lightness of pinks and whites. The dark colors of the paintings are areas in which the artist was experiencing either happiness or sadness in her life, and the light colors in the big planes represent instances when the artist could breathe easily and take a rest.

In the artist's opinion, despite the technological and cultural advances in the world and our country, one can hardly see an abstract painting on the walls in an Iranian home. People do not relate to modern paintings, and they do not even try to get familiar with modern artistic styles. People are so involved with life that they have no time to enjoy art, especially abstract art. She believes that we all have to try to develop an interest in the field of art, and that art should progress with the development of the world.