Sanam Khatibi: The Hunger

Looking at the new series of paintings by Sanam Khatibi that form her current exhibition, The Hunger, at Mendes Wood Paris, it is not surprising to learn that the artist first discovered the work of Hieronymus Bosch at the age of five, when her mom left a book of his work out on the table. The young, future-artist clearly must have absorbed the reproductions of his fantastical and obsessive paintings and stored it for her future self. As she described in an interview with TL Magazine in 2019, “I was told by someone who was trying to scare me that the images depicted in his paintings were a portrayal of what would happen to us if we were sent to hell. I was mesmerised and spent hours flicking through the pages: imagining every single scene”.

The paintings in The Hunger, which are installed across the two-floor gallery space, reflect an untamed nature, one buzzing between good and evil. Khatibi’s Nature, with a capital N, is a dominant and primal force. In some instances, it’s as if the landscape is about to wrap and weave its way over the tiny humans or skeletons that lie within it. Khatibi trained as a falconer, which perhaps gives her an added intuition when it comes to painting the wild birds and animals found across many of the paintings on view. Beautifully painted plump and plush feathers of exotic looking birds engage with lushly saturated flowers, and moody, tempestuous skies, all of which signal some kind of change, shift or omen. As Martha Kirszenbaum writes for the exhibition’s text, “Sanam Khatibi’s practice oscillates between a fascination for human violence and the macabre, and the flamboyant representation of an idyllic nature bathed in soft light and lush with vegetation. Her works explore themes of animality and primal instincts, making us tread that fine line between fear and attraction, chaos and seduction.”

Khatibi paints as a contemporary artist who channels the past for current realities. Her paintings are technically rich with intricate details, beautifully rendered forms, allegorical references, the use of chiaroscuro, and dark, saturated colour. In an era of big, bold painting, there is something quite stimulating about the scale of Kahtibi’s paintings in The Hunger, some of which are very tiny, measuring only 13 x 18 cm. It doesn’t mean they are any less impactful or engaging, if anything, they feel more powerful for the intimate experience that they demand of the viewer.

Khatibi has said that in nearly all of her work there are themes of danger and anxiety, chaos, destruction, excess, domination. She is exploring our relationship to power structures, but there is no moral tale or black and white messaging. Rather, the shades of grey, the mysterious, allegorical and poetic details ask us to look within and reflect on the world and our place within it. These paintings feel very relevant for current times – the folly of humankind within the force of nature and the ongoing battle between good and evil.

The Hunger is on view at Mendes Wood Paris through May 17th.

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Sanam Khatibi

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