End of the Immortality is the title of Roozbeh Nemati Sharif’s solo exhibition currently on display at Soo Gallery in Tehran.
In this exhibition, the sculptor addresses the theme of violence through a series of artworks, exploring the enduring presence of violence throughout history up to the present day. It seems as if the aspiration for a world free of violence is merely a dream that may never be realized. Violence, with its multifaceted nature, continually manifests itself in various forms, suggesting it is an ongoing phenomenon with no definitive end in sight.
“Violence” is a global phenomenon claiming countless lives each year, surpassing the impact of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, diseases, and predatory animals in the past. Today, violence stands out as the foremost threat to human life worldwide. Daily news headlines vividly highlight this reality: massacres in Ukraine, the tragic case of Romina, beheaded by her own father, Mona’s brutal murder in Ahvaz by her husband, and the displacement of countless refugees throughout history—all stark examples of violence’s pervasive impact. Despite humanity’s advancements in civilization and the moral teachings of religions and intellectual doctrines intended to uplift humanity, regrettably, contemporary society remains deeply entrenched in perpetuating harm upon its own kind.
For the past three years, Roozbeh Nemati Sharif has focused his artistic endeavors on constructing a collection of sculptures, bas reliefs, and paintings around this theme. Born in Tehran in 1980, Roozbeh holds a Master’s degree in Art Research and a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, having exhibited his artwork in nine group exhibitions prior to “End of the Immortality.”
Given that you are the son of one of Iran’s renowned sculptors, Bijan Nemati Sharif, please start by telling us a bit about the environment in which you were born, grew up, and how your artistic background flourished within it.
I was born into a cultural and artistic family. While I consider myself self-taught as an artist, I must say my father was my first art teacher. For years, my father worked in puppet theater at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults. Since childhood, I have always seen him engaged in making his theater puppets, sculptures, and personal paintings. Over time, we gradually assisted him in creating these puppets and sculptures, thus becoming familiar with sculpting and painting techniques from an early age.
When did you seriously start painting?
I started painting from a young age, and at the age of seven, one of my paintings made its way to the Shanghai Festival in China. Alongside painting, I professionally learned classical guitar and continued to study guitar until just a few years ago. The environment I grew up in was deeply artistic. When it came time to choose my field of study, I decided to pursue industrial design. Until recently, I worked in this field and owned an interior design company, personally designing furniture often using sculptural forms.
Given that you had the opportunity to familiarize yourself with sculpting techniques from childhood, I want to ask why you decided to introduce yourself as a sculptor to the artistic community with such a delay?
As long as my father was alive, I never felt the urge to one day create sculptures myself. My mindset was focused on designing architectural spaces and furniture. However, I had many designs for sculptures over the decades, but due to my involvement in interior design work, I never found the time to execute them. After my father’s passing, I unconsciously felt this void within me and decided to leave industrial design behind after 20 years. Since 2017, I have been actively and continuously pursuing sculpting. During this time, I have participated in nine group exhibitions.
Did you start your work from the beginning with a unified theme and the goal of creating a series?
No, I never think ahead of time that I want to present my ideas in the form of a series. However, because my works evolve based on my mindset and perspective on issues around me, they gradually form a cohesive intellectual collection.
What techniques do you use to create your sculptures?
Since I became acquainted with sculpting through my father from childhood and worked for years in industrial design and workshop production, this experience has exposed me to many techniques that have been influential in developing my individual technique. Unlike some sculptors who specialize in one or a few techniques and delegate part of their execution to assistants, I personally utilize an individual technique and execute it myself to create my sculptures.
My method involves mixed media or material combinations. I start with styrofoam as the initial base of my sculptures. Once the general form is created, I apply layers of plaster in several stages. After sanding, the final form is achieved. Subsequently, several layers of polyester resin are applied, followed by an oil paint layer, then acrylic paint, and finally a polyurethane layer. Additionally, in some works, I use metal, wood, and fiberglass as necessary. I have developed this technique experimentally.
While my father initially made the primary form of his sculptures with styrofoam, he completed their forms using papier-mâché, fabric, and wood glue. However, the technique I use for my sculptures differs from my father’s, providing different structural capabilities. One advantage of this technique is its incremental and decremental approach, allowing changes to be made until the last moment. Another advantage is its speed compared to harder materials like stone and wood, enabling rapid realization of ideas. A third advantage is that these sculpture-paintings use color to imbue the sculpture with spirit, drawing it out of its physical space and connecting it with the viewer. The weight of the produced work is minimal, facilitating ease of transportation and storage.
We know that among Iranian sculptors, apart from your father, there are few artists who create colorful sculptures. What made you also interested in color?
As we understand, our perception of the world around us is colorful, and a sculpture with color only as its material execution seems incomplete and lacking something. The use of color in sculpture makes the work more captivating and adds deeper implicit meanings to the sculpture. In most of my sculptures, I approach color and form symbolically and meaningfully, going beyond merely formalistic considerations. However, because part of my father’s focus was on puppet theater, his sculptures tended to engage more with a fantastical and poetic perspective, which imbued his sculptures with an abstract, poetic, and surrealist atmosphere.
Do you intentionally use vibrant colors in your work?
I’m not fond of excessive use of mixed colors; they can seem discordant and lack clarity. Vibrant or vivid colors are attractive and establish a more direct connection with the viewer. My work involves a blend of painting and sculpture.
My exhibition’s theme focuses on violence, which is often heavy enough to repel viewers, prompting them to quickly leave the exhibition and forget what they’ve seen. By using color in violent themes, I aim to break this space and create an environment where the viewer stays engaged with the artworks, contemplating deeper layers.
In painting, the absence of volume and third dimension felt empty to me, while color gives soul to sculptures, quickly connecting with the viewer. In the natural world, we see colors in a combination, but when applied to industrial materials like metal, due to its uniformity and complexity, it doesn’t create an emotional relationship with the viewer and seems industrial, especially since color adds another dimension to the sculpture and because color has its own symbolic structure and produces parallel emotions, the viewer can interpret the work for himself, so a sculpture creates another dimension in addition to form.
Considering that your exhibition is on violence, how has the use of bright colors helped your artistic expression?
As you know, violent subjects are always challenging and repugnant to the audience. Like many artists, I could have shown violence very clearly and raw in my work, but I did not. Violent subjects are so heavy that they make the audience flee and try to leave the exhibition as soon as possible and forget the works and images they saw. For me, using color for violent subjects meant breaking this space and creating a space where the viewer stayed in touch with the exhibition, establishing a connection with the works, and reflecting in later layers.
For me, color plays a significant role in breaking down space and establishing a connection with the viewer. This does not mean whitewashing violence or softening it to ultimately reproduce it. Rather, if anything, it is a form of critical thinking, not just a confrontation. This intellectual formation transcends immediate actions or mere sympathy for the survivors of atrocities. It takes shape in a rational environment devoid of emotional bias, where art based on reason should provide such an opportunity.
Why did you make violence the main theme of your work, and what kinds of violence do you focus on in your pieces?
These sculptures are drawn from my own life experiences in today’s environment, each finding its historical context when created. However, my approach to social issues goes beyond their temporal and geographical contexts, presenting these works in a universal framework addressing broad human concerns rather than specific instances.
In these works, there isn’t a straightforward narrative that depicts a specific historical, social, and geographical point. However, behind each of these works, there exists a story. In fact, all my works derive their form from their content, and for each of them, I have a mental issue for each sculpture is born from a mental issue I have, transforming it into a physical form. The works in this exhibition, developed over the past three years, explore violence on three fronts: “Operational Violence,” meaning direct physical violence; “Receptive Violence,” ideological violence, discrimination…; and “Systemic Violence,” influenced by the disastrous impacts of economic and political systems. Violence has manifested itself in various forms throughout human history, perpetuating new forms in turn. It seems violence is an inevitable outcome. Since a straightforward approach to this topic often fails, in this collection, I have attempted to create an opportunity for a discerning view through elements of color, form, and allegorical perspective—a knot untangled. This artistic description is a fragmented reflection of reality, aligning its inherent form with the complex and bewildering reality of the world.
This collection, which encompasses various works, has it been exhibited before?
This collection comprises of 53 pieces, including two paintings and nine bas reliefs and the rest sculptures. In recent years, I have exhibited five pieces from this collection in group exhibitions.
Do you consider yourself a figurative sculptor?
No, in my works, we see a combination of formalistic approach along with figurative elements. However, these works are not purely figurative; I incorporate a minimalist and fantasy-like approach to the figures to bring them closer to my mental imagery. I fundamentally lack a naturalistic and realistic perspective.
Why did you choose the title “End of Immortality” for your exhibition?
Essentially, with every act of violence unfolding in the world and every flare of war, groups of people perish, yet violence does not end with the death of each group. Instead, it continues in different forms of existence.
Considering you mentioned having a symbolic approach through form and color in your works, how does this manifest formally in your pieces?
For example, one of the works in this collection is a pig. Due to extreme obesity, its skin is cracking. It has two wings, and at the bottom of the sculpture, we encounter a collection of spears that have given it an aggressive stance. Yet, its wings and pink color lend a humorous tone to this sculpture. In essence, although appearing robust and assertive externally, seemingly ready to take flight and defend itself, internally it harbors a sense of cracking and destruction.
Given your thematic focus on violence and the profound meaning each of your works conveys to the audience, do you consider yourself a committed social artist?
I believe art serves to establish a connection with the audience, educate them internally, and raise awareness. The pinnacle of art occurs when an artist transcends personal issues and impacts their community. Such artists inevitably must adhere to principles. While the creation of these works is an individual endeavor, the artist requires resources and investment in infrastructure to amplify their impact and bring their works to the broader societal level, even to be installed in squares and streets. This way, art enters the lives of ordinary people who may not be art connoisseurs, introducing aesthetics that soften their spirits and provoke questions, altering their perspectives on issues. These are the functional roles art has held for humans throughout history, and it is the duty of governmental bodies to recognize the value of art in society first and foremost, invest in it, provide facilities for talented artists, and provide facilities so that these works can enter society and find a way to the public eye, rather than just becoming pieces that remain in private homes or collections? A sculpture placed in a city over time becomes a part of a society’s history and culture. To build our culture, one of the most important tasks is to prioritize art, preserve it, organize it, exhibit it in museums, exchange it internationally, and create opportunities for discussion and dialogue about it.
Do the sculptures in this collection, with the technique you’ve used, have the potential to be created on a large scale and installed in urban spaces?
Yes, these sculptures have that potential. However, I have designed them for indoor spaces. If they were to be installed in urban spaces, they could be made using fiberglass and automotive paint instead of acrylic. As sculptors, we often face constraints in creating and maintaining our sculptures, which is why most of my works are smaller in scale.
How has your exhibition been received?
During the exhibition, I received very positive feedback, and fortunately, the reception of my exhibition was excellent. I hope that alongside serious audiences of visual arts, the number of serious critics of visual arts will increase, and artistic movements will be reviewed and critiqued. I hope that responsible organizations such as the Iranian Sculptors Society and the House of Artists will value artistic achievements by holding sessions, engaging in discussions with artists, writing texts about exhibitions, publishing annual books, and recording our cultural and artistic history.
How has the feedback from this exhibition impacted your work?
Given the positive reception of my paintings, I have decided to display more paintings in my future exhibitions and take painting more seriously. Unfortunately, modern homes with limited space pose challenges for placing sculptures.