Figures emerge
from darkness, turning the void into an active space of the image.
A site-specific
work from the Surface as Memory series, developed within the voids of a
deteriorated architectural structure.
Public Mural Project – Tehran Municipality, Iran, March 2020
This work was
developed on an abandoned structure with deep, dark recesses.
Instead of
treating these voids as empty space, I used them as the starting point for the
image.
-
- Leila Delfan
The scene is drawn from the Shahnameh, focusing on Rostam and the White Demon. Rather than being placed on the wall, the figures emerge from within these dark interiors. The black spaces function as both depth and background, so the image is partly hidden and partly revealed.
What interested
me here was this shift—from absence to presence. The figures are not fully
visible at once; they appear as something coming out of the structure itself.
The work depends
on this relationship between image and void, where the architecture is not just
a support, but part of how the scene is formed and perceived.
