Saeed Nodehi

Biography

Saeed Nodehi (b.1982) was born in Tehran. After showing a great aptitude for art, he began his academic studies in 2004 at Tehran University of Art and Architecture, and continued his studies to receive his Master’s degree in painting. His active exhibiting life started in 2007. Since then, he has had four solo exhibitions at Etemad Gallery, Tehran, and more than 60 group exhibitions in the most prestigious Iranian galleries. 

Nodehi has been able to draw from his vast experience to bring his unique voice to curating, so far arranging six exhibitions, and contributing to the development of new ideas and talented artists. He has been dedicated to furthering innovation and growth in the arts, which he has been achieving in his role as Director of Event Operations, and through his membership of the Art Policy Committee in the Alborz Festival of the Modern Painters, held at the Iranian Academy of Arts. 

In 2015, Nodehi established The Painters Association of Alborz, in cooperation with a group of painters from Alborz province, attracting hundreds of artists and holding professional workshops and exhibitions. 

Teaching at universities and art institutes is among the many other activities he has been involved in since 2008.  His practice and attention in painting concerns the mapping of social relations and human values in the frame of images. 

Currently, Nodehi continues his professional activities as a painter, curator, teacher, and executive director of the Painters Association of Alborz. 

Statement

Nodehi’s works are mainly characterised by a sarcastically expressive viewpoint, inspired by the historical and social conditions of his immediate environment. This motif engages the audiences and pushes them to embark on an intuitive journey into the world of pictures, while evoking an interaction between the artist, the artwork, and the audiences. 

Since 2007, the central ideas of his art pieces has been focused on the intellectual and analytical position of the human being. The human being in the face of each other, as well as the context of the social space, a position which transforms and changes the ambience wherein the artwork is created. This idea has still been preserved in his works; only its visual form changes from one collection to the other, while its concept remains constant throughout. He also employs humour, and sometimes the “visual grotesque,” in order to confound his audiences momentarily.

The details and style of his childishly awkward, or perhaps unconscious, designs lie behind the seriousness of the main atmosphere of his works. A paradox aiming to complement the semantic field of his pieces. 

Much of the artist’s draw comes from the two different layers that many of his works are composed of. On the first layer he shows the seriousness and bitterness of the adult’s world, and makes a visual reference to this subject and on the second layer in which he playfully and creatively fiddles around with this subject. The juxtaposition of these two components creates an interaction that brings the meaning into existence. 

The atmosphere in his different collections is revealed in various degrees. Sometimes they are subjective and unrealistic, and the other times they approximate to the objective atmospheres. This form of visualisation is the result of the analysis of the human being, and the serious confrontation with the idea. 

In this regard, the colour processing and the deformation of forms and shapes in the artist’s works, are also the outcome of this confrontation with the social subject and context.