Koushna Navabi
Title: Untitled (Gaza)
Year: 2024
Media: Colour photo print, Rotring pen, Epoxy resin
Size: 40 x 29.5 cm
About the work: UNTITLED (GAZA) combines a photograph of bombed-out houses in Gaza with a surreal drawing above the devastation. The ruins reveal the dreadful aftermath, with scattered clothes and children's toys amidst the rubble, evoking a heartbreaking sense of innocence lost. Above the debris, a grotesque and visceral shape hovers, reminiscent of female reproductive organs, with bright red patches that may suggest blood. The contrast between the photograph's raw realism and the surreal drawing creates a powerful visual commentary on the traumatic scars left by war and the haunting presence of human suffering.
Bio: Koushna Navabi, an American-British artist of Iranian descent, was born in 1962 and moved to the U.S. after the 1979 Islamic revolution. In 1993, she relocated to London to pursue a Master of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College.
Navabi specializes in textile and multimedia, including sculpture, installation, and painting. Her work reimagines traditional "feminine" techniques, infusing them with irony to challenge societal norms. Inspired by cultural myths and narratives on Orientalism and gender, she explores themes of East versus West, Iran, and otherness, blending the personal with the socio-political.
Title: Those Who Weep
Year: 2024
Media: Embroidered thread, Antique cloth
Size: 34 x 23 cm
About the work: THOSE WHO WEEP is the eponymous embroidered phrase rendered in delicate white thread on a piece of antique cloth. The words appear in the same muted tone as the fabric creating a subtle, almost whispered presence, as if the text itself emerges from the material like a soft breath. The phrase’s quiet, lyrical weight, evokes a sense of both vulnerability and tenderness as the words emerge from the aged cloth, suggesting an intimate connection between language and memory, where the act of stitching becomes a poetic memorial, a quiet, persistent echo of human sorrow.
Bio: Koushna Navabi, an American-British artist of Iranian descent, was born in 1962 and moved to the U.S. after the 1979 Islamic revolution. In 1993, she relocated to London to pursue a Master of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College.
Navabi specializes in textile and multimedia, including sculpture, installation, and painting. Her work reimagines traditional "feminine" techniques, infusing them with irony to challenge societal norms. Inspired by cultural myths and narratives on Orientalism and gender, she explores themes of East versus West, Iran, and otherness, blending the personal with the socio-political.