“I chose the pseudonym O.lala because of the fear that I still feel. Although I live abroad, there is a risk that my family will be threatened in Iran.” says Iranian visual artist K. who uses a pseudonym and is never photographed.

She is a politically militant woman and an artist who speaks openly in her work about sexuality, the cruelty of the love act, the cruelty of male desire in societies that often accept it. This time, she is presenting part of her work in the exhibition “For Obligatory Paradise” at the Crux Gallery. Basically it is painting, collage and several designs. Although an attempt was made by the gallery to bring more of these works from home, this proved risky and impractical.

She was born in 1983, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, and grew up under pressure from Islamic religious leaders on Iranian society, especially women. She describes the situation richly: the mandatory wearing of the hijab, hatred of the female body, its concealment-disappearance under clothing. “As an artist faced with such cruelty in my country, I could not remain silent. My art is sexually themed and against the laws of my country, so I decided to move abroad to protect my life and freedom,” he explains.

Obviously, her artistic practice cannot be understood independently of her identity as an Iranian, and so our discussion begins with the Tehran School of Fine Arts. “As you know,” she says of her research, “we have one of the most stringent censorship systems in the world. For example, all of the nudity in the pictures from the art history books we used as students is covered. So I had to use my imagination to reconstruct the images from the descriptions in the captions so that I could then answer the relevant questions from the teachers. In my opinion, studying the fine arts in Iran is a waste of time, although I know very well that few of my compatriots have the opportunity to travel abroad.”

In a free country

“My art has a sexual theme and is against the laws of my country, so I decided to move abroad to protect my life and freedom,” says the artist.

She applied for a postgraduate study in the Netherlands — “more to get a feel for the experience of creating art in a free country” — because from the very beginning her subject, with its pronounced gender identity, was forbidden by Iranian customs. Gradually, she began to introduce sexual themes into her work in order to “heal” personal trauma, bad or even abusive sexual experiences she had in the past.

“That way I could express my anger, which worked psychotherapeutically for me,” he tells us. “At the time, I resisted the idea that my work was political. However, over time, I discovered that all this is not about me personally and my own experience, but about all women like me, women whose lives were taken by the regime. We share the same feelings because none of us has been able to express our pain and anger. If you are a victim of rape in Iran, you cannot go to the police because having sexual experience before marriage is a sin and it is none of their business if you are forcibly subjected to it.”

Now living in Europe – he prefers not to mention where – he still expresses himself artistically on the same subject. “Is this a form of martial art or does the appeal of the challenge also play a role?” we ask her.

Choice and rights

“The main reason why I use women in my art more than men is not provocative,” she replies. “But, of course, this is a reaction to all the restrictions that this regime has tried to impose on us, depriving us of choice and rights. Our leaders knew how powerful women could become, so they wanted to suppress their power with strict laws. In my opinion, now is the time to listen to women’s voices and bodies. The time has come to stop being afraid, and this is what the revolution launched by a new generation in Iran, brave girls and boys who are not only fighting for themselves, but also winning human rights in one place, is saying to the whole world. world, where they were brutally trampled on.”