CAGED FREEDOM
A Thesis
Presented to the faculty of the Department of Art
California State University, Sacramento
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
Studio Art
by
Afsaneh Dehbozorgi
Spring
2014
© 2014
Afsaneh Dehbozorgi
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ii
CAGED FREEDOM
A Thesis
by
Afsaneh Dehbozorgi
Approved by:
__________________________________, Graduate Coordinator
Andrew Connelly
__________________________________, Graduate Advisor
Sarah Flohr
____________________________
Date
iii
Student: Afsaneh Dehbozorgi
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to
be awarded for the thesis.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator
Andrew Connelly
Department of Art
iv
___________________
Date
Abstract
of
Caged Freedom
by
Afsaneh Dehbozorgi
Through my paintings, I hope to motivate free women of the world to seek action
to help those with seemingly no alternatives in their lives. The survival of humanity is
dependent on our coming to understand each other and accepting our differences. My
personal freedom now stems from detaching from the world, my thoughts, decisions and
desires. My focus now is to uplift my soul in ways that lead me into a world without
gravity and restriction. I want this freedom for women everywhere.
_______________________, Graduate Coordinator
Andrew Connelly
_______________________
Date
v
DEDICATION
I am dedicating this thesis to my beloved Guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba who gave me
the vision for my life and is the light that guides me and shines within me, to my children
Ali and Mahlegha, to my husband Mehdi, to my inspirational and wise parents who loved
me unconditionally and encouraged me to open my eyes to all of life. Also, I dedicate my
work to all women of the world who are unable to have a voice to create and express their
true selves. I will be eternally grateful to all the teachers, Sarah Flohr, Andrew Connelly,
Ian Harvey, Bob Ortbal, and Tom Montieth who technically guided me to grow in the
process of becoming a painter.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication……………………………………………………………………………...vi
List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………viii
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………1
CAGED FREEDOM…………………………………………………………………....2
LINE…………………………………………………………………………………… 5
COLOR……………………………………………………………………………….....7
SPACE…………………………………………………………………………………..8
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………….. 10
ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………………. 11
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………26
vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrations
Page
1.
Anguish of the Persecuted 1.……………………………………………………11
2.
Anguish of the Persecuted 2…………………………………………………….12
3.
Anguish of the Persecuted 3………………….…………………………………13
4.
Anguish of the Persecuted 4…………………………………………………….14
5.
Anguish of the Persecuted 5…………………………………………………….15
6.
Caged Freedom 1………………………………………………………………..16
7.
Caged Freedom 2………………………………………………………………..17
8.
Caged Freedom 3………………………………………………………………..18
9.
Caged Freedom 4………………………………………………………………..19
10.
Caged Freedom 5………………………………………………………………..20
11.
Caged Freedom6………………………………………………………………...21
12.
Caged Freedom 7………………………………………………………………..22
13.
Caged Freedom 8……………………………………………………………......23
14.
Caged Freedom 9………………………………………………………………..24
15.
Caged Freedom 10………………………………………………………………25
viii
1
INTRODUCTION
As a Persian woman coming from Iran and living in the United States for many
years, I have witnessed in both places the obstacles that women face both socially and
intellectually due to cultural belief systems, social customs and prejudices. The situations
that are depicted in my paintings have been created by the misinterpretation and the
misuse of religious and political power and cultural ideology. As I began with memories
of my own past and some of my present personal struggles, my emotions were
manifesting on the canvas. This was an important opportunity to relive the pain and
struggles experienced by growing up in Iran and having a unique challenge coming to the
U.S as a young woman and becoming a mother of an autistic child. Studying art, the
circumstances of my life which caused resentments and pain, and also my personal
spiritual guidance, have all helped me to let go and forgive the past and live in the present
moment.
My goal is to influence people of the world to consider more deeply the effects of
continued prejudice, between religions and sexes, and the subjugation of others, so that a
change in peoples’ consciousness can occur. My vision is to show the injustices of the
past so the viewers might choose to change their attitudes, so that there is a chance for
better future in the world at large.
2
CAGED FREEDOM
Clive Bell’s theory is based on his definition of art as a significant form coming
from an emotion that he calls the “aesthetic emotion.”1 Bell also explains that if we could
discover the particular quality in each work of art that creates this “aesthetic emotion” we
could see beyond what people try to do in classifying art forms. He believes that we
cannot consider anything a work of art unless we can react emotionally to it and that any
system of aesthetics must be based on personal experience. He believes true art is a
combination of lines and colors, which produce an aesthetic experience according to
peoples’ perception. When art work is judged, it is a reaction to the combination and
arrangements of form that bring about our aesthetic emotions, which is not just brought
about by “significant form,” but significant relation of forms, which marry both the
aesthetic and metaphysical, by calling these relations “ rhythm.”
I could feel my own motivation in painting validated while reading Bell’s
description of the necessity of having “aesthetic emotion” be the basis in ones art work in
order to give it artistic quality and the significance form. This is because all of my art
works so far emanates from my past experience of observing other women both in Iran
and the U.S.
During my educational process, I drew inspiration from classical Farsi Calligraphy,
the artwork of Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Cy
Twombly and the writing of Clive Bell and Gaston Bachelar. At the age of four my
father took me to the city of Tehran, capital of Iran, where we visited an art gallery. In
1. Stephen David Ross., ed. Art and Its Significance ( New York: State University of New York, 1994), 186.
3
that gallery I saw Guernica a painting by Pablo Picasso for the first time. As I looked at
the painting, I felt a jolt, which drew me into this art piece and my visual experiences
changed after this. I could see those images from the painting everywhere I went, in
nature, among people, especially in my bedroom, which was adjacent to our outdoor
bathing area. Because this bathing area had a stucco surface on the break walls the texture
created images from the moisture and humidity in the atmosphere. I would look at this
and see formations of shapes, which ignited my imagination.
During the last series of paintings in the graduate program, I was motivated by my
emotions and felt more empathy for myself and women in the world. The formation of
the figures in these painting came from both objective and subjective experiences that the
world provided me and that I have experienced personally. There was a slow evolution
within me, which evolved into what Bell describes as “aesthetic emotion.” I not only was
painting from memory, but from self-identification, which moved into empathy and an
experience of ecstasy, which goes beyond the physical. My paintings are both abstract
and narrative in that the subject matter shows women representative of Middle Eastern
countries in the manner in which they are clothed, and women of the West as they
experience the restrictions and the confines of their environment, both past and present.
Most of my figures were chosen to represent the dark, overshadowing oppression and
lack of freedom, which is still in existence in many places in the world and was part of
my personal history. The purposefully shadowy figures in the backgrounds of the
paintings are meant to depict their loss of independence and identity as they survive the
struggle to exist. During this time I started experimenting with the use of lines in my
4
own work, which came from the influence of Jackson Pollock’s paintings, showing his
anger, his frustration and his state of mind by the way he applied the paint upon the
canvas creating a feeling of confusion with the shapes. This gave me the realization of the
power of the lines, dots, marks, and shapes that I was beginning to apply to my own
paintings.
5
LINE
The discovery of the powerful use of lines in painting the figures of women in
oppressed repose also came from reading Kandinsky’s Point And Line To Plane, and I
realized that I had made use of the straight lines representing endless movement, which
he describes in the book. As he says, “This is the straight line whose tension represents
the most concise form of the potentiality for endless movement.”2 Endless movement
was a perfect match for what was needed to represent in these female figures as there was
no possible positive conclusion for their lives. It was an endless futile life they faced. The
power of horizontal lines, which Kandinsky describes as creating coldness as the most
“concise form of the potentiality for endless cold movement”3 started to emerge in my
paintings. (Fig #10) Vertical lines were also used, which introduced a different rhythm in
my paintings and introduced a warm movement, which kept the female energy alive in
the paintings.
(Fig #1) Along with the straight, horizontal and vertical lines I also employed
diagonal lines, which brought together both cold and warm effect. Charcoal was the most
effective medium in creating the lines in the paintings. The charcoal allowed an emphasis
to the lines, which the paint could not give. (Fig#4) Then I noticed the formation of the
lines I was applying were the same as the lines in my own palms. This was an
unconscious indication of the relationship between my own life and what was appearing
on the canvases as being a part of me. Because of my interest in the power of simple
2. Wassily Kandinsky, Point And Line To Plane (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1979),57.
3. Ibid,. 58.
6
lines, I remembered the beauty of my own language of Farsi and this added a new
personal element in my paintings.
7
COLOR
I lost my interest in painting “still life” because of my personal family situation,
social isolation and circumstances and I started painting intuitively. Seeing a painting by
Mark Rothko, helped me feel the power of color, and the techniques, which showed the
disconnection of the painter with the material world. This further encouraged me to
continue in the direction that my own work was headed. First I was led to put a dark, flat
background for the figures, so that the figures stood out alone in a cold lonely space.
Then the colors that were used around the figures represented the acceptable dress code
for the women in the country in which these figures live. Dark colors used as background
were prominent to depict either a woman in mourning and represented a specific dress
code color found in these cultures. For instance the color black is traditionally used as a
symbol of women in mourning in both in the Middle East and the U.S. (Fig #2) I felt the
strong power and energy from the color pallet used by Rothko and I eventually
introduced stronger colors such as orange, red and yellow created tension and energy
around the figures, which along with the combination of the warm shades against the
cooler tones give space and depth to the narrative. (Fig #5) In addition I consistently
found the use of ink gave me the option of creating a sense of transparency, which could
not be created with paint alone. Still keeping somber shades of gray into black to keep the
figures in an isolated atmosphere.
8
SPACE
My intension was to create a visual narrative of the human female condition by
the use of figures against a flat empty space and other uses of creating space within the
figures and around the figures, which gave the viewer both a narrative and history
without words or documentation. (Fig #6) As Gaston Bachelard the author of The Poetics
of Space, describes the use of space as experience,“ For a knowledge of intimacy,
localization in the spaces of our intimacy is more urgent than determination of dates.”4
This is very close to my personal intension of creating a narrative, which speaks volumes
about females all around the world who have had the same experience as those still
suffering the oppression experienced in my own country and my life. In this painting,
(Fig #7), I purposefully used space to give the viewer the feeling of emptiness, futility,
suffering and lifelessness, which the figures represent. The artists Terry Winter and Cy
Twombly inspired me to experiment further with space and the fluidity of the paint. I
liked the lateral movement of these artists’ paintings, which created both the feeling of
being lifted up and floating down.
The space within the figures was used to create contrast and to go into a deeper form
of the narrative. My experience with this series of paintings culminated with seeing how
lines and colors created the space, which brought about the atmosphere and narrative I
intended to depict. (Fig #11) In all my paintings the space in which the figures are
pictured represent both typical colors of certain dress codes and especially by the Chador,
4. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (Boston: Becon Press, 1969), 108.
9
coverings worn by women in the Middle East. This dress code of the Middle East can
visually express a woman’s social, physical, and psychological state within their society,
whereas in the West we may not see the psychological state of a woman by their clothing
however, the hidden mental, physical and psychological dysfunction can be found.
10
CONCLUSIONS
As the paintings progressed, letting go of past hurts and resentments provided me
with a renewed sense of my past and myself. As my personal reflections changed within
me, the energy changed in the paintings. It became apparent that my intensions in what I
want to depict had evolved into a need to show a change in my perspective of my life and
those close to me. I am still in the process of this evolution and can see it evolving more
and more as I continue on my path as a painter.
11
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Anguish of the Persecuted, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
12
2. Anguish of the Persecuted 2, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
13
3. Anguish of the Persecuted 3, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4’x5', 2013
14
4. Anguish of the Persecuted 4, Acrylic, ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
15
5. Anguish of the Persecuted 5, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
16
6. Caged Freedom 1, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
17
6. Caged Freedom 2, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
18
7 Caged Freedom 3, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2014
19
8. Caged Freedom 4, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
20
9. Caged Freedom 5, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2013
21
10. Caged Freedom 6, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 4'x5', 2014
22
11. Caged Freedom 7, Acrylic, oil and Charcoal on Canvas, 5'x6', 2014
23
12. Caged Freedom 8, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 5'x6', 2014
24
13. Caged Freedom 9, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 5'x6', 2014
25
14. Caged Freedom 10, Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Canvas, 5'x6', 2014
26
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Becon Press, 1969.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Point and Line to Plane. New York: Dover Publication, Inc., 1979.
Ross, Stephen David., ed. Art and Its Significance. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1994.