Nazanin's Studio

May 16th, 2018

One of the most salient and resonant characteristics of this year has been my exposure to art.  I have seen more art, learned more about art, and thought more about art this year than I ever have before.  Part of this exposure comes from being in Paris:  there are dozens of galleries, exhibits, and museums within a short walk of my apartment, not to mention the churches, government buildings, and public spaces overflowing with art.  Part of the increased exposure is due simply to the fact that being on sabbatical gives me more free time than I would have in a typical year.  But a very important factor has been my friendships with both Nazanin and Astrid.  They have both been so generous, inviting me into their studios, sharing their work and its evolution over time, and answering my questions about techniques and media and logistics and constraints and inspirations and connections.  These conversations have not only been great fun, but they have also been intellectually challenging and broadening in ways that have surprised me.  (I would like to think that this is exactly what sabbatical is for.)

Earlier this week, I had the great fortune of being invited to Nazanin's studio near Bastille.  I met her and Astrid there a bit before noon.  It is a group studio, a large, bright space with high ceilings and paint-spattered white walls.  It was buzzing with activity---artists focusing on details of small drawings, others standing back to eye a large canvas on an easel, still others washing brushes or organizing supplies.  Nazanin occupies a back corner, so we walked down an aisle past several other working artists to arrive at Nazanin's space.

She had laid out three distinct series of work for us to see, and I was anxious to see all of them, but my eye went immediately to an oil pastel drawing hanging on the wall.  I loved the sculptural quality of the vegetables and the vividness of the colors against the black background.  Astrid described it as luminous, which I think is about right.  And although I love abstraction in art as well, I am drawn naturally to figurative art, especially the "minor" forms of still life and landscape.  

Here are some other drawings in this series.  I like the geometries of the melon and garlic.  

 She had some smaller drawings of figs, too, that I loved.  The colors really appealed to me.  Here are two of those.

The second series explored the flow of ink on the paper as it branches and organically creates pathways.  It was inspired by her work as a cardiologist.  (Oh, yeah, did I mention that she is also a cardiologist?!)  Here are some examples.  Related, she is working on a series which take cues from patterns and shapes and colors that appear in medical imaging.  

The final series took its inspiration from Persian music and its different modes.  These drawings are also rendered with oil pastel on black paper.  Here are a few laid out with a close-up of my favorite.

  

I love the use of white to create both gradients and sharp contrast.

The idealized view of sabbatical is a year of intellectual growth and discovery.  I am so impressed at how Nazanin, having taken a year off of her practice of medicine, is realizing that ideal.  I am used to thinking of a much more mundane reality:  using my sabbatical to finish up old research projects and just push forward on my already-established research agenda.  I'm starting to realize, though, that that view of my intellectual year is too narrow.  It's too early, I suppose, to know if and how this new-found knowledge and intellectual exercise might manifest itself in my work as an economist or otherwise, but maybe that's beside the point, and I should just enjoy it for now.  

The three of us emerged from the studio into a cold and damp Paris afternoon, walked together to lunch, and shared ideas and stories and musings over plates of spicy tofu and steaming bowls of pho.