Hadieh Shafie

Gallery Affiliations: Leila Heller Gallery, Pentimenti Gallery, Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, XVA Gallery

Region: South

A constant element of my work has been the significance of process, repetition, and time. In works comprised of paper scrolls, I mark individual strips of paper with handwritten and printed Farsi (Persian language) text. Each strip is then tightly rolled to create a core, around which successive strips are added. Repeated in the work is the word for love, or “eshghe. ” The repetition of this particular word is a recurring element in much of my work of the last decade.

During the repetitive process of adding paper strips to create individual rolls, text and symbols are sometimes revealed and often hidden. Concentric forms of text and material take direct inspiration from the dance of the whirling dervish. Poetry and the search for the dervish within are at the core of my own search and rebellion.