Sanam KhatibiCyanide

Belgian artist Sanam Khatibi perpetuates the genre of vanity through small still lifes composed of objects from his universe: flowers, insects, animals,… A seductive world but in tension with themes such as violence, sensuality, animality and our primary impulses. His paintings question our relationship to excess, loss of control, the attraction of opposites, the man-woman dynamic, domination and submission, triumph and failure. Sanam Khatibi plays with the borderline between fear and desire and their interdependence.

“This publication focuses on Sanam Khatibi’s meticulously painted small still lifes. With the finest brush she applies light and shadow in oil paint to various miniature shapes. The compositions themselves are quite unassuming. Objects loom haphazardly from the golden or black background and seem to sing in polyphony in the vein of Orlando di Lasso, Johannes Ockeghem and other masters of polyphony. (…)
The highly detailed objects come from a golden age that has yet to come. In contrast with the Dutch Golden Age of the 1600s, hers is a century of self-flagellation, cosmology, human sacrifice, femininity, prestige and decapitation. A century in which all forms surrounding us mysteriously shrink. This futuristic universe will reduce the human footprint. The world will shrink to the scale of a postcard of a still life painted by Sanam Khatibi.” (Text Nikolaas Demoen)