Azadeh Razaghdoost: Recipe for a Poem

Sophia Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present 15 recent paintings by Iranian artist Azadeh Razaghdoost for her first solo exhibition in the UK. Azadeh Razaghdoost's practice refers to 19th century European poems of the Romantic Age. The poem ‘The Sick Rose’ (1794) by British poet William Blake and the volume of poetry ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ (1857) by French poet Charles Baudelaire have infused the artist´s work over the years. The contradictions inherent to human nature are at the core of the artist’s work, which she conveys in a sensual, lyrical and allegorical language. By focusing on the emotional properties of the colour red, a leitmotif in the artist’s oeuvre, Razaghdoost evokes poetic associations with love, passion and blood in order to explore contrasting existential states and impulses: health and sickness, life and death, love and lust…