It’s the glue that stands out first. Embedded in the fibres of a Persian carpet, this frozen spillage appears at first to be a tragedy in miniature. But there is an alchemy at work, and a set of subtle changes taking place. Here, glue becomes a secondary canvas bearing text and imagary, and the rug becomes a soft sculpture — a complicated landscape. In and amongst it all, a patch of gold leaf glistens optimistically.
Tehran-born, Cape Town-based artist Sepideh Mehraban has been working with Persian rugs for some time now, salvaging them from auction houses and second-hand stores, and giving them new life as layered art objects. Items of cultural significance — every household in Mehraban’s home country of Iran has one — they’re objects that are alive with love and labour, and bristling with a hand-woven history of women’s labour.