Interview: Moayedi Ameneh
Luca Curci talks with Moayedi Ameneh during ROME INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2021 at Medina Art Gallery, and during VENICE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2021 at Misericordia Archives.

Moayedi Ameneh was born in Iran in the city of Bouchehr (1980) on the banks of the Persian Gulf. As a teenager, she affirms her taste for graphic arts and at 20 she obtained a bachelor’s in graphic design with an average of 20/19. Adult, and to perfect her French, she leaves her country for Beyrouth. The young woman has one goal: France. Once arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, she will apply at the Faculty of Letters of Lille (2012-2013) in order to master French and to be able to pursue her graphic studies at the nearby « École supérieure d’Arts » of Cambrai. As a first approach, she is asked what could be her project once graduated. For her, it is an evidence: Rugs. Persian, of course. She works on its history and techniques, and it leads to a book of which she will ensure the layout, the binding and the ornamentation. Two years later she obtained the National Higher Diploma in Plastic Expression, a master›s degree. We are in 2015. Paris, finally. Luck and a decisive encounter enable her to enter « La Cité des Arts ». From her room near the Seine, her view on the first morning is a cathedral: Notre Dame. She will meet all kinds of foreign artists, musicians, painters, comedians, coming from Africa, Israel, or Palestine. They turned out to be new friends, and thus new alliances. Common projects are made and come apart. She started to paint, drew the cartons of two modern rugs, which she had executed in silk and wool in a renowned workshop in central Iran. She baptizes one of them: Black hole in space. Black India ink, oil, acrylic, Ameneh is working flat out. The canvases are expensive, so she uses hardboard, cardboard and crumpled paper. The exhibitions kept coming, three in Paris, one in Dresden in Germany, in Nice, in Tréport. During the sixty days of confinement, she creates one image per day for Internet users, with her project «Chez Moi, chez Vous», drawings alive, stellar, animated and dotted with traveling bubbles, grimaces, fluorescent colours. She has fun and jubilant mini-pranks written in digital, intended to confined propelled into space by the Net. Moayedi Ameneh, our Iranian francophile was prepared since childhood by a family which gave her to read Victor Hugo, Rimbaud, or even Balzac and Michel Foucauld, is young and alive. Beautiful in addition, which is still a talent.

Luca Curci – Which subject are you working on?
Moayedi Ameneh – In the collection “Insomnia”, I created them when I could not sleep and slept during the day, creating them for two years non-stop, I used my own dreams and nightmares notes and a few of others’ dreams and nightmares. These are old collections and I never had an installment because it was a course of art therapy for me. But after many years, I found them in my archive and they were very popular at the solo exhibition in Paris.

LC – How did you get to your current artistic practice?
MA – I started designing professionally with art teachers when I was 13 years old. And then I studied art high school as well as art university. Approximately ten years of professional and academic training in art.

LC – Do visitors’ suggestions enrich yourself and your art?
MA – No suggestion, conversation yes, of course.

LC – Did your style change over the years? In which way?
MA – Yes of course. Because our bodies, our minds and the world around us are changing. And I can not work on certain subjects and styles for example ten or twenty years. I like the variety in my work ‌This is sometimes very criticized both positively and negatively. For example, after Master 2 at the University of France, I became very interested in Persian carpets and I am creating a large collection in this field.

LC – Which art themes do you pursue? What is your preferred subject, if there is any?
MA – Human Human and Human…beings are very important in my works, bodies, surprised and sometimes confused forms and faces of life. I like to ask questions and make the viewer think now whether it is a question of creation or of customs and humanity and even human relations. (In this collection). And of course, women play an important role in my paintings. I like the viewer not to pass by my painting easily and I enjoy creating puzzles.

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the exhibition? In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the exhibition’s theme?
MA – It’s great to be able to bring artists from other places together in one place. And the works together, yes, of course, is a great idea.

LC – Do you think ITSLIQUID GROUP can represent an opportunity for artists?
MA – Yes, this group is very well planned. and I hope to present solo exhibitions for artists in the future. I Which prefer.

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with us?
MA – This was my first collaboration, and it will not be my last because I really enjoyed the planning and tidiness as well as the warm blood of this group.