Gallery
Parisa Taghipour stitches wounds with thread and fabric. A textile artist whose cacti and 'monsters' calm a private ache behind every stitch.
Parisa Taghipour stitches wounds into softness — thorned, tender, whole.
Parisa Taghipour is an artist who works with thread and fabric, sewing soft sculptures — cacti, "monsters," and artist books — that hold a lifetime of feeling. Born in Tehran in 1983 and holding a master's in painting, she says the biographical details matter less than the fact that she is here and still carries the spark to create. Her confidence was planted early, by a father who sketched carpet designs, made stained glass and marquetry, and wrote books, and by a mother who cheered her through every hardship of an artist's life. Much of her work is a way of metabolizing grief. After she lost each of her parents, something inside her bloomed and spilled into her creations; she poured the ache into stitches and scars, the marks she weaves into every piece. The sewing itself soothes her fire and quiets the storm — a gentle release when anger rises. Viewers often read her open, wound-like forms as dark or intense, but for her the act is freeing, an unloading from the inside out that lets her breathe easier. At the center of her practice is the cactus — her self-portrait. Thorny and guarded on the outside, soft and tender within, it defends its own space much as she has spent her life shielding the people she loves. She treats her creations as loyal companions and true friends, and takes joy in knowing each becomes a bridge between her and others: seen, kept, alive in someone's day rather than forgotten on a shelf. She asks little of life beyond the materials to keep the flow going — the right paints, endless fabric, heaps of fiber.