A young woman sits hunched in a chair, knees covered by a blanket, gaze turned aside, lost in thought. Behind her an old television, a dingy wall, a mantle littered with domestic debris. At her feet, worn tiles or linoleum. Farsam Sangini, located in Tehran, strikes me as displaying an imaginative and deep empathy with the everyday, with the quotidian concerns of his sitters and with the details of their lives. This species of unromantic but sympathetic realism was one of the great projects of nineteenth century painting and writing, and it is such a relief to encounter it again, to see an artist dedicated to comprehending the meanings of the lives of those around him, and using art not to change those lives, but to invest them with a dignity
which can only be obtained through the loving and clear-eyed gaze.
By
Daniel Maidman
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/23-artworks_b_8730150