October 11, 2012 marks the opening of Bellevue Gallery’s exhibition, ‘The name of this tree…’ featuring paintings by Pari Azarm Motamedi.  This latest exhibition by Pari is based on the poetry of Mohammad Reza Shafii Kadkani.

Kadkani’s poetry expresses, in beautiful layered images, the observations, thoughts and experiences of an artist and scholar experiencing life in contemporary Iran.  Pari aims to convey her interpretations of these poems and their layers of meaning in a visual language that has been developing over a lifetime of contemplation and work.

While interpreting Kadkani’s poetry, Pari has chosen to focus on three different areas of concern and preoccupation which affect both the twenty first century poet living in Iran, and the twenty first century artist living in the West.  She believes the same areas of interest are shared by many of us living in this era of questions and contradictions.

The first area of concern focuses on poems that are a response by the poet to immediate and spontaneous times in ordinary life. The poet alludes to the importance of appreciating the moment instead of focusing on what lies beyond.  Secondly, the author focuses on sociopolitical events, and finally Kadkani deals with universal questions of life, human experience, and existence.

In Kadkani’s poems one encounters a sensitive, thoughtful artist saddened and angered by all that is happening around him and in the world.  Even so, Kadkani sees beauty, living life fully in each moment while at the same time deeply thinking about the bigger universal questions of life.

Pari shares the same concerns as Mohammad Reza Shafii Kadkani, and expresses this through her work and paintings, using Kadkani’s poetry as the source of her inspiration.