Roya Amigh’s solo exhibition Absolutism and Sexuality features the artist’s interpretation of contemporary Persian miniatures and marks her debut at Boston Sculptors Gallery. Combining thread and paper to create hundreds of tiny drawings, Amigh stitches these together into evocative sculptural forms. Draped from the walls and suspended from the ceiling, their narratives focus on Iranian women's social history and identity at the intersection of gender and sexuality.
While the Persian miniature traditionally illustrates classical Iranian literature and is painted on paper in vivid gouache, Amigh’s miniatures eschew color and largely reform the figures, giving genders a strong quality of line and texture. She begins by using a pin to draw the image with glue and then adds the thread before embarking on the patient practice of stitching so many miniature drawings together.
Traditional miniatures depict mythical beings, tremendous characters, and rich symbolism, to which Amigh infuses her own feminist interpretations. She interweaves folktales and classic Iranian literature with a new narrative of women’s real-life events and the effects on their everyday lives and collective memories. Penned by men, the classical literature often involves female subjugation. In stark contrast, the folktales, mostly written by women, often offer liberation of sexuality. Amigh harnesses this gender differentiation, interlocked with erotic desires and frustrations, to challenge social values.
