art

Parya Ghaderi's solo exhibition "After the Choice" opens on Saturday, April 18, at 6:00 PM at Guga Contemporary. The exhibition presents the artist's symbolic exploration of nature, the body, and the cycles of existence within a poetic and contemplative framework.

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Born in Hamedan, Iran, in 1984, Ghaderi graduated from the Department of Painting at Tabriz Azad University. Throughout her practice, the tree and the female figure emerge as recurring visual motifs, while the image of the apple has become a central element in her recent works. In her compositions, the female figure is depicted as rooted to the earth like a tree, embodying fertility, creation, and the continuity of life. Reflecting the cyclical rhythms of nature, these figures become metaphors for the uninterrupted passage between death and rebirth.

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Human faces appearing within the form of the apple serve as powerful symbols of this cycle. Just as an apple falls from a branch, returns to the earth, and gives rise to new life, human existence unfolds through an ongoing rhythm of birth, death, and renewal. Through these recurring images, Ghaderi reveals the inseparable relationship between humanity and nature.

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The conceptual framework of the exhibition revolves around the notion of choice. In the artist's interpretation, the apple is not a symbol of temptation but of the desire to know. The moment traditionally understood as "the Fall" becomes the point at which human beings first confront their own existence and solitude. In this sense, After the Choice marks the threshold from which there is no return. Before it becomes visible, every choice is made internally; what remains is not hesitation, but the traces that decision leaves upon the body, space, and time.

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The apple is no longer a promise but a consequence. Split open, it can no longer conceal what lies within. Knowledge has already been attained, and with it comes the inevitable solitude of confronting oneself. Ghaderi's paintings inhabit precisely this threshold—between the weight of knowledge and the fragility of existence.

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Rather than focusing solely on nature's cyclical order, the exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the complex relationship between choice, knowledge, and freedom.

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Constructed through the female subject, this visual narrative moves beyond imposed notions of paradise, pointing instead toward a space of existence shaped by one's own choices.