Small-scale
figures are embedded within the surface, becoming part of its texture rather
than sitting on top of it.
A site-specific
mural developed in direct response to the worn surface of an urban wall.
Public Mural Project – the National Urban Arts Festival “Small Walls of My City”, Tehran, Iran, March 2018
This project was
developed as part of the National Urban Arts Festival “Small Walls of My City.”
The wall was
already aged and uneven, with visible cracks, stains, and layers of previous
paint.
-
- Leila Delfan
Instead of
covering these conditions, I worked with them. The figures were placed within
the existing surface—sometimes inside cracks or along irregular edges—so that
they appear to belong to the wall rather than sit on top of it.
The imagery draws
from Persian miniature painting, but in a reduced and fragmented form. Rather
than reconstructing complete scenes, the figures appear as partial moments,
dispersed across the surface.
This creates a
shifting relationship between image and wall, where the viewer moves between
reading the surface and discovering the figures within it. The project was
later re-executed in a second location, adapting to a different wall while
maintaining the same approach.
