Manijeh Yadegar

Manijeh Yadegar Hall (1951-2016) developed her own powerful and unique visual language. She explored abstraction with an unequivocal femininity. Her paintings are strong assertions of her womanhood – and possess that rare quality of combining striking beauty with a quiet contemplative quality. They exude a powerful, but serene aura and their elemental nature makes us pause to reflect upon their essence and consider our personal response to their abstract forms. Yadegar Hall wrote of her works: 

“The resultant marks and washes echo the physical rhythms of the body. Areas of dark and light take turns in the dominant role. There is a strong element of spatial interweaving, an interplay between figure and ground, a contrasting of soft and hard edge changing the focus from sharp to hazy. They develop observations of the natural world into completely abstract images; memories of places, moments in time, the transition between night and day, dawn to dusk. I would wish the paintings to have a contemplative beauty and to transmit light with a sensation of calm, but strong feeling.”