Mohammad hasan Hamedi

Afsaneh Akhoondi is a painter who creates her works in various ways each of which provides us with sighs and symbols to analyze and expresses social concepts in a common field. She belongs to a generation of Iranian artists who have witnessed numerous experiences living within them. This generation has lived during the reign of two different governments with experiences of the Islamic Revolution in the mind. It has witnessed the period of the Imposed War and observed the presence of different people in the society. Maybe it comes out of such matters that people nowadays, willingly or unwillingly, are connected to an ideology and treat ideologically in their artistic manner. Yet, what we encounter in this totality and in Akhoundi's works is a transformed image of an intelligent mind honestly expressing its intentions.
In other words, in the painterly practice spanning two decades, the artist sometimes has inevitably applied technique and drawing power, while in some occasions turned to the meaning in an imagination free from the former two. This narrative is at times so bitter and hazardous that the conservative society neglects it with horror.
In one image she combines her portrait with a graphic sheet of Mar va Pelle (Snake and Stairs) game. Apart from the familiarity of this entertainment and its connection with the artist's childhood and adulthood (there are many of such signs in Akhoondi's work), it is conceptually indicative of the unexpected situation and the uncertain fate of those who have been engaged with it in Iranian society, especially after the Islamic Revolution. These are people who were honored one day while some others became dishonored! More strange, was the fact that neither honor was so much lasting nor dishonor that persistent. Now by presenting one's own portrait, mostly being suggestive of distress and hopelessness, the painter makes this meaning seem different to the audience of the narrative, a totally personal one that could be looked for in most of her works.
As an Iranian woman not able to change the society's approach and not satisfied to decrease her intentions and social excitements, Akhoundi seems to observe her mental manifestation only in the refuge of her works, a kind of exteriorization that a society bored with meaning passes which with negligence.
The various painterly media Akhoondi applies in her work have now exceeded painting, drawing and print. They have been mingled with newer media. Yet, her new works still tend to remain in the society as an active critic and express what they desire.