While Abbassy clearly employs the beautiful patterns commonly associated with Persian craftsmanship in paintings such as “Diptych of Fractured Selves Falling Away + Silencing her Polyphony,” the work also contains a feeling of vague psychological drama that speaks across cultures, a kind of subconscious mourning or anxiety at once specific but relatable (2023). In the case of the aforementioned painting, Abbassy surrounds the two main female figures of the diptych with multiple, smaller heads, representing the way fragments of our past selves fall away in time. This allegorical approach is present throughout the exhibition and especially poignant in the painting “Bound By Her Fate” and the charcoal drawing “Self Sabotage,” in which Abbassy uses the female figure’s braided her as a symbol, looping it around her head and through her mouth as if she were either muzzled by or eating it (2013, 2020).
GBH News and PRX Debut New Podcast, ???The Big Dig,??? the Fascinating Story of the Most Expensive Highway Project in America
Can America still build big things? It’s the central question of The Big Dig, a new podcast announced today from GBH News and PRX, examining American infrastructure through…