Much of Parviz Tanavoli’s visual inspiration comes from Persian culture, the reality, myth and legend. The country’s rich poetic heritage, textile traditions and architecture, all feed into his sculptural works. As part of the Saqqakhaneh School of artists, he was part of the vanguard bringing modernism to Iran and creating an indigenous form of contemporary art. Common themes in Tanavoli’s work include poets, prophets, locks, lions, lovers, cages and birds.

Depictions of lovers abound in Tanavoli’s work. Influenced by Persian poetry and legends such as the doomed Shirin and Farhad, Tanavoli also employs visual devices such as the nightingale to poetically allude to absent lovers. Of his figurative works, Tanavoli comments: “From the very beginning I felt that I did not want to do representational figures, although I like the life of humans and whatever is connected with man and woman; but I still never tried to represent people exactly as we see them. I always used my own imagination and my own interpretation. That’s why my figures, as you see, remind one of a human body, but do not resemble one.”

In this 1991 unique iron sculpture, the forms undulate as the figures reach out for one another, entwined and sensuous, but with delicate piercing to their bodies to allow light into the sculpture. The figure to the left has locks attached to the cage in her breast – the cage being metaphor in Tanavoli’s work for the home of hope, rather than a symbol of restraint. “I do not consider what I put in cages imprisoned, but preserved, made safe.”