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LEILA HELLER GALLERY - ARTIST: Hadieh Shaife

646 views · Published 28 February 2015 · 8:34 · Indexed 23 October 2026

Channel: NYC GALLERY OPENINGS · 2015 · Entertainment

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Surfaced, Hadieh Shafie’s first solo show in New 
York, will be on View at Leila Heller Gallery’s 
Chelsea location from February 26 to April 11, 2015. 
The exhibition will feature twenty new artworks 
and both builds on her much acclaimed past work 
and explores new mediums. An illustrated 
catalogue with an essay by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve 
will accompany the exhibition.

Shafie’s colorful and multidimensional works defy 
simple categorization. The artist layers thousands 
of strips of hand painted paper, which are then 
rolled into scrolls and placed within a frame or 
stacked flat. Persian words like eshgh ("love") are 
inscribed on and often concealed within the layers 
of paper. Shafie’s repeated use of words and 
phrases references meditative practices that are 
central to Sufism.

Shafie’s practice as a whole is also an investigation 
of color fields, experimenting with countless forms 
of paper and testing their reactions following 
different treatments. The palette for her new show 
will consist of nine colors: ultramarine blue, 
cadmium yellow medium, quinacridone magenta, 
c.p. cadmium orange, c.p. cadmium yellow 
primerose, light magenta, phthalo green, dioxazine 
purple and fluorescent chartreuse , in addition to 
black ink and the white of the paper. The artist 
plays with illusory optics as the interaction of these 
nine colors gives the impression that the works 
encompass hundreds of colors saturated within 
the scrolls. Using a variety of techniques, some of 
the works in Surfaced feature initially straight 
strips of paper that increasingly emulate the flow 
of water. In others, the stacked strips of paper 
seem to be floating throughout the surface and 
the scrolls themselves seem to gently sway. These 
works are held together by binding the strips of 
paper to one another, directly referencing the 
art/history of bookbinding and manuscript 
making.


As the artist continues to explore the conceptual 
aspects of her medium, diptych pieces will 
juxtapose flat scrolls with stacked strips of paper 
where the text is directly applied to the surface 
edges. In this interplay between the hidden and 
the revealed, Shafie effectively activates the surface 
of her works. If the strips were to be separated 
from one another, the words would disappear 
altogether. The text in these new diptych works 
incorporates verses from two of the most 
influential modernist Iranian poets, Forough 
Farrokhzad and Sohrab Sepehri.

The new show challenges viewers’ concepts of 
sculpture and drawing as the artist successfully 
allows images and forms to appear in multiple 
dimensions. The edges of flat works directly 
reference the image on the surface, while light and 
shadow interact on more overtly sculptural stacks 
of scrolls and papers to create painterly surface 
images.

Born in Iran, Hadieh Shafie currently lives and 
works in Silver Spring, MD. She has exhibited at 
numerous global institutions such as The Victoria 
and Albert Museum, London; Institute du Monde 
Arabe, Paris; Casa Arabe, Madrid; the Cantor Arts 
Centre, Stanford University; and the San Antonio 
Museum of Art in Texas. Her work can also be 
found in prestigious public and private collections 
including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New 
York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los 
Angeles; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; 
The British Museum, London; Sheldon Museum of 
Art, Nebraska; The Bank of America, Corporation 
Collection, North Carolina; The Salsali Private 
Museum, Dubai; and The Farjam Collection, Dubai.

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