Legend of the Red Blossom, 2021
Acrylic Painting on Canvas, 160 x 135 cm.
Entekhabi paints with ink and on some of the paintings one finds visible splashes of color, possibly reminding one of Rohrschach test images. How a subject perceives those images is analyzed by psychologists in an effort to understand a person’s psyche. Entekhabi’s work has often touched upon exactly this: seeing and being seen. How is one perceived by others as opposed to how one perceives oneself? The figures in the drawings are interwoven, many little parts form a whole, just like the artist’s identity. An identity which is characterized by the artist’s feeling of standing “in-between.” This literally is also the position the naqqal finds himself in when he shifts between the different roles he performs and it also describes his positioning between the paintings and the audience. The frequent appearance of nudity in those drawings could refer to a feeling of unmasking, the more someone knows about you the more vulnerable and ‘naked’ this makes you feel. The drawings are traces of the artist’s memory, a trail that each spectator can follow guided by his or her own associations.
Excerpt from the article Silence may be golden, but Shahram Entekhabi's paintings tell a story. by       Sophia Ayda Schultz      

Sophia Ayda Schultz (art critic, art historian, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)

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Legend of the Red Blossom was exhibitetd at:
2021: Instigator, e1 Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran (solo show)