Welcome to my website!

 

About me

 

For as long as I can remember, I have been in love with painting. I remember a family friend of ours  who made very beautiful paintings when I was about 8 or 9 years old. This was around 1990, in the north of Iran, where I was born. Whenever we went to visit them, I felt overwhelmed by all of his paintings. Every detail of his paintings was interesting for me. I could be absorbed in them for a long time. In my dreams I was a painter and an artist. I have always volunteered for every cultural and artistic activity at my school.

 

Because of circumstances and my point of view at that time, I decided to keep painting as a hobby and choose something else as my future career. That’s why I never attend a painting lesson or academic workshops. Later, this turned out to be useful in finding my own style and techniques.

 

After finishing high school, I attended university and got a bachelor’s degree in English translation. Then I worked for a couple of years as a tourist guide in Iran. In 2006 I got married, and migrated to The Netherlands with my ex-husband. After giving birth to my daughter, I decided to get a bachelor’s degree in IT in order to find an appropriate job. After graduating, I started in a master’s program while working part-time in the IT sector at an electrical company. Sadly, I experienced a terrible accident in 2015 which led to severe mental and emotional injuries. This was a tough period for me, during which I had to face many challenges.

 

During those time, painting was my comfort, painkiller and therapy. It became a turning point of life where I finally welcomed my professional art-life.

 

I like to paint something which when I look at it later, gives me positive energy. I believe in positive psychology and I believe energy is like a mirror. If you repeatedly look at a sad painting with a negative message and pain, it gives you negativity back. Like a calm and peaceful piece of music or a nice perfume give us a good feeling through our ears or noses. A painting with a good and nice feeling can make our days.

 

It is very important to me that the painting has a positive effect on the viewer. I like to give my inner positive energy and calmness to the viewer of my art. I can’t change the whole world, but maybe by my art I can make some people’s world better place.

 

About My Art work

Not having an academic background in art makes my work unique. I developed my own method and style which I learned and discovered by experiencing, experimenting and practicing a lot.

 

The subjects of my paintings are widely varied. I like the freedom to paint whatever I want. But I change each of them to my own style. Maybe my insistence to feel the freedom in my paintings’ subject comes from my homeland Iran, where as a woman I was not allowed to be who I wanted to be.

 

Painting for me is more than the creation of a beautiful object on canvas: it also is way of life and an ideology. This way of life helped me to become stronger as a person, and it opened my eyes and heart to a new dimension of life. It gives me endless energy. I would like to convey all these positive energies to the viewer of my artworks. In my works I use specified elements which symbolize special significances. My special trace, the ‘trace of Maryam Bashari Rad’ has emotional aspects as well as explicit symbols:

 

1.    Rough surfaces: hard times of life.

2.    Cheerful and intense colors: joy of life.

3.    Colors which are not logically connected to the subjects: looking out of box and trying other points of views.

4.    Restful combination of colors: internal peace and meditation.

5.    Ups and downs on canvas surface: ups and downs of life.

6.    Random wild lines: being brave and taking risks.

7.    Diversity of chosen subjects: freedom of mind to make choices.

8.    Subjects with feminine poses/faces: respect for female rights and their freedom

9.    Calmness subject with 'zen' content: close connection with inside of us, our heart and intuition.

10.  Transparent faces and bodies: transparency and being clear.

11.  Parallel lines along each other: being proactive and symbolizing movement.

12.  My own name written in Farsi which looks like a happy face: I like to sign my work with a smile, giving a smile to the viewer.

13.  Unique style: I like to have my own specified art style which is different from others

14.  Unique artworks: I never paint the same painting twice, each of my works is unique.

15.  Imperfections: I choose on purpose some ‘imperfections’ on my artworks such as unfinished lines: no one is perfect, but good harmony can deliver beauty.

 

I like to bring the viewer of my work softness and mindfulness, to the present time.

 

 

Maryam Bashari Rad