Nina Ghanbarzadeh

Tied up in knots trying to read this (2016)
archival pen on cotton rag
30 x 22 in.
$1,800

It is a natural reaction of the brain to read and understand any written text. But what happens when one is not capable of reading something that is written in a different language. It is like going to a grocery store in a foreign country. You are desperate to purchase food but have no idea what is being sold there. The shape of the barbed wire in this work is a metaphor. It divides spaces and prevents from crossing from one to the other. These barbed wires are written in Farsi and they read “entangled”. They do not only depict and say the shape, but also describe one’s frustration of not being able to communicate and understand what is being written. It is the feeling that I get when I cannot say what I want to say in English.

artist’s website

© Nina Ghanbarzadeh