𝐌𝐨𝐳𝐡𝐝𝐞𝐡 𝐓𝐨𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐢 (𝐈𝐑)

𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒕 𝒂𝒕 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆
22/4 – 22/5 2022

𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟐 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 18.00 - 21.00

Curated by Bahareh Mirhadi 

𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐢 𝐂𝐂 proudly presents the solo exhibition 𝐿𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑆𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 with Mozhdeh Tohidi.


Mozhdeh Tohidi is an Iranian female artist currently living in Istanbul, Turkey. She was born in a small village in northern Iran. From the start she showed an interest in nature and simple rural life. She studied and gained an MFA in painting from the Tarbiat Moddares Art University in Tehran.

Recently, her focus has been on land/earth - our main Mother - and the relationship between/among human <---> nature. She works with a variety of materials and techniques, depending on the idea. Her works are inspired by everyday life experiences. She attempts to evoke a question in the viewer’s mind, through familiar situations, without looking for answers or solutions.

𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒕 𝒂𝒕 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 is Mozhdeh's first solo exhibition in Sweden.
https://www.instagram.com/mozhdeh_tohidi/


“𝑻𝒉𝒆 small landscapes of Mozhdeh are void of research, philosophy, or any kind of nonvisual contemplation. They are pure landscapes. We can simply use our eyes to understand them. We can find the sky, be lost in woods, feel the coolness of mist, gaze at haze, be aroused by a lusty tree in the night, search and re-search for the beams of the moon, grab a branch and touch its wet leaves, stand in a field, and lie in a bright glade. In a word, we can fantasize through them. We can indulge in joyful creative visions just by watching them. That is, I think, the pure work of art we are missing these days”.

Text by: Farzan Nasr



Although landscape painting in most periods of art history was considered as an
inferior genre, if it was hardly considered as a genre at all, it is, I think, one of the
pure ways of painting, creating, and imagining. We know that the path to the
abstract painting passed through the landscape painting. Abstraction owes a lot to
the welcome of landscape painting through the 18th and 19th centuries, especially
to European Romanticism.

From Turner to Van Gough, painters developed their own
world and imagination by converting the elements of a landscape to sheer shapes,
colors, textures, making their compositions in order to depict their own fancy. Even
before pre-modernism, many European painters painted landscapes just to show the
audiences some strange and fanciful places which they had never seen. These were
not just orientalist paintings from deserts of the Middle East, urban landscapes of
Constantinople, or some exotic wonderland. Many artisans in Northern Europe
painted landscapes from south of Italy or France, even though they never
themselves visited these spectacular views, to fulfill the curiosity and provoke the
imaginative faculty of common people.
So we can fairly say that landscape painting has always been a means of fantasizing, whether for the painter or the viewer. That is why I think it is one of the pure ways of painting or creating pictures.
Academic critics, the art market, and current trends in art tend to reduce or, as they
probably supposed, transcend everything to the theory or philosophy, often in a
pompous way. You might read many statements, myriad of critical or interpretative
texts about artworks and exhibitions in which the writer refers to the grand
philosophers ceaselessly, or try to justify the work of art in question by deriving
some sort of deep thought out of it. The main problem of artists, ironically, is lack of
thought, idea, philosophy, mentality, or whatever you name it. Artists are constantly
looking for a “good idea” and never find it. It must be somewhere in the possession
of far-fetched mighty gods or splendid secluded goddesses.

Art institutions and residencies run dozens of research-based projects every year and encourage artists to research and investigate without holding a stained brush. When you go to an exhibition to enjoy through your visual sense, they make you read and read and
read their results attached to a so-called art object without any visual value or
aspect. So now we have too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Visual arts are
becoming science, thesis, numbers, words, maps, charts, and projects, without any
visuality. We have very few artists at this moment of history who try to think and
study through their works, not through texts and data. The only way of thinking for
a painter is painting, and for a sculptor sculpting. If there is any thought in any
painting, it is in the act of painting, in the forms and visuality, not somewhere
beyond the canvas.
The small landscapes of Mojdeh, fortunately, are void of research, philosophy, or
any kind of nonvisual contemplation to me. They are pure landscapes. We can
simply use our eyes to understand them. We can find the sky, be lost in woods, feel
the coolness of mist, gaze at haze, be aroused by a lusty tree in the night, search
and re-search for the beams of the moon, grab a branch and touch its wet leaves,
stand in a field, and lie in a bright glade. In a word, we can fantasize through them.
We can indulge in joyful creative visions just by watching them. That is, I think, the
pure work of art we are missing these days.

Farzan Nasr
March 2022


SE

𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐢 𝐂𝐂 är stolta att presentera utställningen 𝐿𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑆𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 av Mozhdeh Tohidi.

Mozhdeh Tohidi är en iransk kvinnlig konstnär som är bosatt i Istanbul, Turkiet. Hon föddes i en liten by i norra Iran.
Redan som ung visade hon ett intresse för naturen och det enkla lantliga livet. Hon studerade och tog en MFA i måleri på Tarbiat Moddares Art University i Teheran.
På senare tid har hon fokuserat på land/jord - vår huvudsakliga moder - och relationen mellan och tillsammans med det mänskliga <---> naturen. Hennes verk är inspirerade av vardagsupplevelser och hon arbetar med en mängd olika material och tekniker, beroende på idén. Hon försöker framkalla frågor i betraktarens sinne, genom välbekanta situationer, utan att leta efter svar eller lösningar.

𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒕 𝒂𝒕 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 är Mozhdehs första separatutställning i Sverige. https://www.instagram.com/mozhdeh_tohidi/

"Mozhdehs små landskap är tomma på forskning, filosofi eller någon form av icke-visuell kontemplation. De är rena landskap. Vi får helt enkelt använda våra ögon för att förstå dem. Vi kan hitta himlen, gå vilse i skogen, känna dimmas svalka, blicka mot diset, hänföras av ett lummigt träd i natten, söka och söka efter månens strålar, ta tag i en gren och röra vid dess våta löv, stå på en åker och ligga i en ljus glänta. Kort sagt kan vi fantisera genom dem. Vi kan njuta av glädjerika kreativa visioner bara genom att titta på dem. Det är, tror jag, det rena konstverket vi saknar i dessa dagar”.

Text av: Farzan Nasr



Although landscape painting in most periods of art history was considered as an
inferior genre, if it was hardly considered as a genre at all, it is, I think, one of the
pure ways of painting, creating, and imagining. We know that the path to the
abstract painting passed through the landscape painting. Abstraction owes a lot to
the welcome of landscape painting through the 18th and 19th centuries, especially
to European Romanticism.

From Turner to Van Gough, painters developed their own world and imagination by converting the elements of a landscape to sheer shapes, colors, textures, making their compositions in order to depict their own fancy. Even before pre-modernism, many European painters painted landscapes just to show the audiences some strange and fanciful places which they had never seen. These were not just orientalist paintings from deserts of the Middle East, urban landscapes of Constantinople, or some exotic wonderland.

Many artisans in Northern Europe painted landscapes from south of Italy or France, even though they never themselves visited these spectacular views, to fulfill the curiosity and provoke the imaginative faculty of common people. So we can fairly say that landscape painting has always been a means of fantasizing, whether for the painter or the viewer. That
is why I think it is one of the pure ways of painting or creating pictures.
Academic critics, the art market, and current trends in art tend to reduce or, as they
probably supposed, transcend everything to the theory or philosophy, often in a
pompous way. You might read many statements, myriad of critical or interpretative
texts about artworks and exhibitions in which the writer refers to the grand
philosophers ceaselessly, or try to justify the work of art in question by deriving
some sort of deep thought out of it.

The main problem of artists, ironically, is lack of thought, idea, philosophy, mentality, or whatever you name it. Artists are constantly looking for a “good idea” and never find it. It must be somewhere in the possession of far-fetched mighty gods or splendid secluded goddesses. Art institutions and residencies run dozens of research-based projects every year and encourage artists to research and investigate without holding a stained brush. When you go to an exhibition to enjoy through your visual sense, they make you read and read and
read their results attached to a so-called art object without any visual value or
aspect.

So now we have too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Visual arts are
becoming science, thesis, numbers, words, maps, charts, and projects, without any
visuality. We have very few artists at this moment of history who try to think and
study through their works, not through texts and data. The only way of thinking for
a painter is painting, and for a sculptor sculpting. If there is any thought in any
painting, it is in the act of painting, in the forms and visuality, not somewhere
beyond the canvas.

The small landscapes of Mojdeh, fortunately, are void of research, philosophy, or
any kind of nonvisual contemplation to me. They are pure landscapes. We can
simply use our eyes to understand them. We can find the sky, be lost in woods, feel
the coolness of mist, gaze at haze, be aroused by a lusty tree in the night, search
and re-search for the beams of the moon, grab a branch and touch its wet leaves,
stand in a field, and lie in a bright glade. In a word, we can fantasize through them.
We can indulge in joyful creative visions just by watching them. That is, I think, the
pure work of art we are missing these days.

Farzan Nasr
March 2022

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