Zahra Ghyasi

Zahra Ghyasi

Zahra Ghyasi (1981, Urmia, Iran) has received her BSc in Computer Hardware Engineering as well as an MBA degree. She started her career as a visual artist in 2010, although prior to that she had been educated in several non-academic art courses. Ghyasi depicts the world around her in terms of the gaps that exist in reality. She believes a work of art can open a new horizon to reality and reveal what lies hidden behind the familiar world. She has held five solo shows in Iran and China and her works have been included in several group shows. Besides her field of specialty, i.e., painting, she has curated several shows. She has also translated and published articles and books on philosophy and art. Ghyasi lives and works in Tehran.


0, 0, 0, 100

0 Pure black pigments can be found in nature. Black pigments that are used in painting industry are usually carbon-based, made by burning wood and bones. Black ink used in calligraphy is made by gathering and processing soot, which is the basic color for printing books.

0 In Persian mythologies, black is the color of the underworld. Hades is pitch black and light and regeneration come out of the heart of darkness. The gods are the makers of man, like Siavash who burns in fire, dies, goes to the world of shadows, and then rises again as new plants with the coming of spring.

0 In a certain process of fossilization of plants, a peculiar phenomenon occurs: a two-dimensional image of living creatures are formed inside the layers of rock. Due to the massive amount of pressure in the course of thousands of years, a heavy trace is left on the stone. In fact, this type of fossils are two-dimensional images of ancient plants and animals—a hidden archive of unknown creatures.

100 Using ashes that have remained from a burning book used to illustrate a fossil garden of extinct plants is a reference to a death that leads to the obliteration of a previous world and the birth of a new text that is impossible to read with previous conventions.

Zahra Ghyasi, “0,0,0,100”, mural drawing with oil and burnt book ashes, 500 x 300 cm, 2018
Zahra Ghyasi, “0,0,0,100”, mural drawing with oil and burnt book ashes, 500 x 300 cm, 2018