DARK MOTHS

Shoughi's sculptures gesture towards interior scenes glimpsed in passing and imaginary landscapes viewed from inside: a garden at night, a view from a window, a bed, a grave, the moon and stars, a distant mountain, cities at night. The human is uncentered. The bed and the grave coexist, each infused with the comfort of the other.

The work rewards a quietly intimate relationship with the viewer. Non-human animals are granted the dignity of having their individuality respected and the emotional complexity of their lives honoured. They are not metaphors but beings in their own right.

Shoughi creates sculptural forms using techniques from craft making and industry, working with a variety of materials, including resin, clay and wool. The lines in the felted works are disappearing into the wool of their backgrounds. The moons are translucent. One bird is vanishing into the wall, the others disappearing into the organic material that is destined to rot. There is a sense of things at the end or at the beginning, a moment of transformation or transition that makes things transparent.

Partially informed by the influences of being brought up in an Iranian household, Shoughi makes work that approaches again and again from different angles an experience of displacement that creates its own landscape out of repeated reference points instantiated from memory and dreams.

‘The Pet Cemetery’ by Ned Beauman is a short story written in response to Poupak Sarah Shoughi’s exhibition.