Art Dubai: Checking out Rose Issa Projects

Beside You by Hanieh Delecroix & Keyvan Saber. Image courtesy of Rose Issa Projects.

One of the best things about attending an art fair, other than seeing pieces from some of the world’s most established artists, is discovering new talent. Sometimes, of course, the artists are already well established but it just so happens that you haven’t heard of them but other times, they are emerging and being given an international platform.

Hanieh Delecroix and Keyvan Saber somehow fit into both these categories. Both were fairly well established artists in their own right but in 2012, decided to collaborate their efforts.

They are the newest artists being displayed in Rose Issa’s booth at Art Dubai and knowing Issa’s eye for spotting emerging talent and for supporting the artists from the Middle East and Iran both at home and in the diaspora for many years, I naturally took an interest.

Delecroix and Saber are two Iranian artists based in Paris and their collaboration is really interesting. First Delecroix, who is a trained psychotherapist and specialises in chronic illness, paints tracing paper with a delicious shade of blue. Her chosen medium is deliberately fraglie, perhaps likening it to skin as the fragile layer between the outer world and our inner emotions.

In the series titled Life Line, the blue could almost represent water and then, perhaps the script over the top is the saviour.

The script, in white paint, is added afterward by Saber who inscribes well known Persian poetry, sometimes decipherable and sometimes not and adds a more conceptual layer to the images that can be appreciated either for their meaning or just for their aesthetic qualities.

As they are still emerging the prices were very reasonable, which makes them very tempting. Shame the one I had my eye on had already sold by the time I discovered them.