Vita
Guest student, Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría, Seville, Spain
honour student of Prof. Jerry Zeniuk
Artist’s Statement
Each painting is, to me, a scene, a vision, a view. My works are invitations for the eye to gaze through a window opened onto a space of nostalgia. They unfold as vast, imaginary vistas, where color acquires sculptural depth, breathing life into forms that hover between the seen and the suggested.
Working in the ancient tradition of egg tempera, I dwell in the space between abstraction and figuration. In these paintings, I explore how structure, form, and color can be experienced and shaped as a unified whole.
Each composition develops through a dialogue of opacity and transparency, proximity and distance, with layer upon layer constructing a sense of depth. Matte surfaces and sharp outlines define the forms, which carry a quiet intensity, made almost tangible by the velvety texture of egg tempera as they emerge from luminous, transparent grounds.
My fascination with the Italian Renaissance merges with the lyrical elegance of Persian calligraphy and miniatures, as well as the meditative fluidity of East Asian ink traditions. From this confluence emerges a transcultural visual language that moves beyond boundaries.
The poetry that unfolds within my process resists explanation. It is a sensing, a searching, an exploration of seeing and of the transformation of vision into image. Through this, a physical connection develops between what first appears in the inner eye and what gradually takes visible form.
Memory and perception intertwine, as the inner projections of remembrance meeting the outer impressions of nature, allowing dreamt landscapes to arise.
An excerpt from the catalogue: „Tales from the Waves“
… Waves recall the immensity of the sea’s seeming infinity and undisguised vastness, as Assefjah’s magnificent volutes rhythmically approach and recede from us, immeasurable horizons opening up behind them. The swell conveys the rhythm of space, fascinating with its familiarity and yet immensity. ‚Nature‘ is in ‚inverted commas‘; for what nature speaks to us today? In the Anthropocene, we experience its fragility and preciousness. Assefjah’s colour-drenched paintings evoke the splendour of wonderful blossoms, lush meadows and forests, rushing waters, and yet unfathomable shallows or vast horizons open up, right next to voluptuously arching sweeping ornaments.
While the calligraphic dimension of the works has been associated with Assefjah’s Persian roots, they also feed on familiarity with East Asian and Oriental arts. This idiosyncratic pictorial language is at the same time so densely saturated with the visual experiences of splendid robe studies of Western painting that it has virtually become a new transcultural painterly lingua franca. …
… With brushstrokes that are capable of being delicate with force, Assefjah unfolds, as it were, visual-poetic philosophical explorations of the fluid boundaries between the real and the imaginary. In our late-modern digital present, which confronts us with shiny illusions everywhere, Assefjah’s images offer concrete sensual invitations to face the seductions of real haptic beauty with poetic precision.
Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet, August 2023
Awards & Scholarships
Annual DAAD Scholarship, Rome, Italy
Public collections (selected)
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany, www.lenbachhaus.de/digital/sammlung-online/detail/ohne-titel-30035453
KiCo Foundation
Gabriele Münter- and Johannes Eichner Foundation, Munich, Germany
Guangdong Art Museum, China
Pinakothek der Moderne, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, Germany, www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/de/artist/rqxNJnbxvW/moje-assefjah
Graphische Sammlung, Munich, Germany
Colección olorVISUAL, Barcelona, Spain
Max-Planck-Institut, Munich, Germany
DekaBank-Kunstsammlung, Frankfurt a. Main, Germany
Studiensammlung der Diözese Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany
Münchner Rückversicherung, München, Germany
Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank, Düsseldorf, Germany
Artothek, Munich, Germany
Collection Osram, Munich, Germany
BIZ Bank für internationale Zahlungsausgleich, Basel, Switzerland
Hamburg Mannheimer, Hamburg, Germany
HypoVereinsbank, Munich, Germany
Colonia Nordstern Art Insurance Company, Cologne, Germany
HUK-Coburg, Germany
Siemens AG, Munich, Germany
Allianz Insurance, Munich, Germany
D.A.S. Insurance, Munich, Germany
LHI Leasing GmbH, Germany
Collection BHW Holding AG, Hameln, Germany
Association of the Sparda Banks, Frankfurt a. M., Germany Cragg Foundation, Germany
Bibliography
2000 – Gebündelte Farbenergie, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Heinz Herzer, Munich; text by Dr. Anne-Marie Bonnet, ISBN: 3-9803962-5-8
2001 (April/May) – Sigrid Feeser, “Mojé Assefjah / »was einem bleibt«,” Kunstforum, Vol. 154, pp. 436–437
2001 (November) – Annette Hoffmann, “Malerische Wirkung der Farbe,” Badische Zeitung
2004 (Nov 10) – Münchner Wochenanzeiger, “Münchner Künstler im Schlosspavillon: Abstrakt, Bildhaft, Poetisch”
2004 – Tableau, BBK München, exhibition catalogue, Petra Renke
2005 (Aug 12) – Marie Luise Knott, “Künstlerin dieser Ausgabe: Mojé Assefjah”, Le Monde Diplomatique
2005 – Klaus Ebbers, Jerry Zeniuk, Andrea Dippel, Universelle Malerei, Guangdong Museum of Art, ISBN 7-5394-1691-2
2006 – Christian Gögger, “Über das Denken aus Bildern in Bildern”, exhibition catalogue
2014 (April 19) – Juan Bufill, “Mojé Assefjah, Sensuales Aperturas al paisaje”, La Vanguardia, Barcelona
2015 – Clémence Cottard Hashem, On the Other Side of the Grape Gardens: Une Invitation au Voyage, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, exhibition catalogue
2015 (March 30) – Edgar Davidian, “Mojé Assefjah, entre baroque, onirisme et règne végétal”, L’Orient-Le Jour
2015 (April 15) – Franz Kotedder, “Empfang im Rathaus”, Süddeutsche Zeitung
2016 – Morphology of the Archive, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Goa
2017 – Stephan Berg, Matthias Mühling, Sammlung KiCo Collection, exhibition catalogue, Kunstmuseum Bonn & Lenbachhaus München, Hirmer Verlag
2017 – Honar: The Afkhami Collection of Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art, exhibition catalogue, Phaidon Press, UK
2018 – Kunstbulletin 5/2018 / Artlog, Switzerland, “Mojé Assefjah – I Cover the Waterfront”
2019 – Christiana Jabara, Women of Resilience: Female Artists of the Middle East, exhibition catalogue
2020 – Joanna Chevalier, From Beirut Art + Design Scene, Piasa, Paris, exhibition catalogue, “You Will Rise Up Again”, Münchner Feuilleton Magazin, Christa Sigg
2020 (March 21) – L’Orient-Le Jour, “Envie de culture? Cliquez sur ces liens”, OLJ
2020 (Sept 11) – Brita Sachs, “Saisonstart: In München mit voller Kraft voraus”, FAZ
2021 (April 8) – Anastasia Nysten, “Mojé Assefjah / Galerie Tanit”, Selections Art Magazine
2021 (May 26) – Annette Hoffmann, “Mojé Assefjah: Portrait”, Artline Kunstmagazin
2021 (Sept 9) – Maïlys Celeux-Lanval, “La foire Art Paris en 7 stands coups de cœur! Mojé Assefjah à la Galerie Tanit”, Beaux Arts Magazine
2022 (March 1) – Evelyn Vogel, “Leitstrahl in die Gegenwart”, Süddeutsche Zeitung
2022 (March 4) – Silke Hohmann, “In München blickt Dip in the Past rückwärts”, Monopol Magazin
2022 (Sept 9) – Roberta de Righi, “Fenster zu verborgenen Realitäten”, Landshuter Zeitung
2023 (Jan 5) – Abendzeitung: “Die Sterne des Jahres: Kulturelle Lieblinge der AZ, Künstlerin Mojé Assefjah: Große Farben und Formen”
2023 (Sept 4) – Roberta de Righi, “Poetisch wie Liebeslieder”, Abendzeitung
2023 (Sept 5) – Evelyn Vogel, “Münchner Kunstherbst: Sonnige Aussichten”, Süddeutsche Zeitung
2023 (Nov 14) – Nao Yim, “Mojé Assefjah’s solo exhibition in South Korea, Tales from the Waves”, Sayart.net
2024 (March 28) – Challenges, “ETEMAD GALLERY: Abstraction figurative, Le Jardin de Rosso Fiorentino”, Mojé Assefjah
2024 (April) – Beaux Arts Magazine, No. 478, “Mojé Assefjah, Unterm Baum”, Etemad Gallery
2024 (Feb 28) – HeralDeep, “Mondo Subacqueo”, Joeun Gallery, Seoul
2025 (Oct 6) – Heather Gaudio, “Nature, Emotion, and Form Converge in Formal Approaches”, Artdaily, Heather Gaudio Fine Art, Greenwich, CT