The artist collides private recollections with external representations of her community, botanical framings of native iris flowers and the ways in which her country has been transfigured, through oil extraction for example, by foreign powers. These juxtapositions feature in her work, The circuit of discussions (2022), in which Norouzi conjures the ugly truth of the world’s insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, and how Iran’s oil wealth has been both a blessing and a curse for its people. The exoticizing Orientalist gaze is conflated here with extractive industries, the race to control natural resources, and the ensuing spectacle of violence that often conceals the impact of reckless Western politics on the region’s populations.
Mixed media print, sealer on translucid paper
14” x 8.75”
