Mamali Shafahi, Deep Throats: How Deep is your Love?

VITRNE, Fitzrovia

11 October – 17 December 2022

Deep Throats: How Deep is your Love?’ at Vitrine, Fitzrovia, is Mamali Shafahi’s first solo show in the UK. In his sculptures and wall reliefs produced in epoxy resin, that are then spray painted with car paint and flocked, the Iranian artist and filmmaker recalls ancient Persian pictorial and storytelling traditions.

‘In Persian fables, as in many ancient cultures, the main characters are animals. I am very influenced by these fables, for example Kalila and Dimna, in which animals replace humans to tell stories. In my work, animals are the vehicles through which I talk about contemporary issues, or the merging between the contemporary and the past’ is how the artist describes his practice.

When approaching the gallery’s shop window our attention is immediately captured by Heirloom Velvet, 2022, a brightly coloured, rotating figure with human and animal features, and by How deep are your eyes, 2022, a colourful wall relief formed in resin that includes an ape’s and a snake’s head surrounded by plant-like ornaments and insects. Both works are set against a grid of pink tape on a white temporary wall, and it feels as if we are immediately dragged into an immersive virtual world inhabited by monsters and fantastical creatures. The entrance area’s visage completely changes during the night when the sculptures are lit by UV lighting, causing them to appear in shades of fluorescent blue.

In the main gallery four bright blue totemic wall works with the title How deep is your mouth, 2022, depict monkeys violently covered in chains.  With their mouths wide open, they seem to be full of anger and aggression. On the opposite wall, two gorillas, a father and son, are holding hands between the sharp teeth, in the open mouth of a large snake. The gorillas, snakes and other animals create a situation that is at once puzzling, scary, and violent yet also playful – perhaps recalling the farcical violence of cartoons many of us have enjoyed in our childhood.

A selection of new wall-based reliefs that are part of the artist’s iconic Heirloom Velvet, 2022, series are exhibited in the lower ground floor gallery. The newly developed work reflects the artist’s collaboration with his father, highlighting a transgenerational dialogue, where the father’s drawings are playfully reimagined in the son’s artworks, which, like the sculptures upstairs, results in hybrid works, featuring fantastical creatures both human and animal.

Overall, Mamali Shafahi’s works sits between kitsch, pop culture and history. By giving his sculptures a futuristic and outer-worldly look, the artist aims to make ancient Persian mythologies look more visually attractive for the next generation. His aim is to connect young people, who grew up in the digital age, with the richness of their ancient cultural pasts. In Deep Throats: How Deep is your Love? the artist’s striking flocked sculptures become almost immaterial, like holograms or images on smart phones to reflect that technology has increasingly blurred the lines between past and present. Shafahi’s fantastical creatures at VITRINE powerfully bring back some of the ancient magic that, according to the artist, in our times, when we spend most of our time scrolling through images on our smartphones, we have lost.

Christine Takengny
Senior Curator  

38 Riding House Street, London, W1W 7ES
Opening Times: Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm
Exhibition open until 17th December 2022