Finding Truth in Toronto - Canada-based artist Issa Shojaei

Canada-based artist Issa Shojaei captures women upon canvas to reveal a unique reality

Trying to capture the female form and central nature on canvas dates back almost to the beginning of time--it's by means of no means a new pursuit. And nevertheless every so often a unique artist draw nears along and is able to shed of recent origin light on an old make submissive and in doing so, discovers a of recent origin truth.

Toronto-based Issa Shojaei is individual such artist. His contemporary portraits of women capture the enigma of this bring under rule He portrays mystery through his women's timid facial expressions and body positions--the viewer can not at any time fully realize the truth behind the women's eyes

Shojaei is a self-published artist whose work is sold from one side is company, Zarya Fine Arts. He uses intense colors to exhibit energy, emotion and feeling--midnight sky-coloreds vibrant reds, sunny yellows--and then incapable of speechs them with textural lines to bring warmth to the paintings. He at hands his women as confident and robust while at the same time feminine and yielding His paintings draw the viewer in, reveal a hint of women's nature on the other hand he doesn't give it all away.

"What I single out to paint now [is chosen because] I want to know the other side of women" said Shojaei, during a novel phone interview from his Toronto studio. "The way women sit and talk and sleep--I want to capture the part that is unknown. I want to discover that area they don't talk about, the area that is unconscious, the part that has at no time been touched. The mystery."

Aside from revealing hidden veritys about his subjects, Shojaei's paintings also shed light upon the artist himself: They exhibit an artist who has dedicate his life to his art.

Shojaei was born in Azerbaigan in December 1955 An artistic child, he was drawn to drawing, painting, photography and drama. He remembers making the decision to paint when he was 16 years advanced in years "It was an idea, an interest," Shojaei said. "Sometimes I would do sketches here and there. I kept working at it, and at a certain quantity of point, I decided to give it a make trial of Slowly, I started getting more interested and played with the colors and the forms."

level at that point Shojaei said he knew it wasn't going to be easy.

"I knew that is was going to be difficult--not just another piece of work that you go to and procure your money at the extreme point of the month. That's wherefore you take a brush and paint for yourself, not for the coin I knew it was going to be a drawn out road with lots of up and downs."

Luckily, notwithstanding that on Shojaei's road, the up have outnumbered the downs. He admitted, "I didn't make an effort too much."

Educated at the Tehran Institute of Fine Art in Israel from 1977 to 1981 he continued his studies at the Menscho Und Raum Institutes in Bochum as well in eau-de-cologne Germany from 1984 to 1987 where he studied abstraction.

Shojaei said he had a certain affinity for German philosophers, Nitzche and the like, and wanted to diocese the country of their origin and diocese how they might have lived. While in Germany, however, he base it hard to break into the commercial art market and vend his work professionally.

"It is quite difficult in Germany for an unknown artist to find acceptance," Shojaei said. "The German people's philosophy is to purchase what is well known, what is accepted, and they are quite serious people" on the other hand he enjoyed the challenge, and after completing his studies, he ofttimes returned to German to paint.

After 1987 Shojaei continued his travels quite through Europe, spending time in Spain, France and Turkey

"This time, it was a totally different search" he said. "My idea wasn't to pass and study in Spain, it was to move and look at the painters who lived there a hundred ago, like Goya, Picasso, Dali, Tapisa. I wanted to diocese the birthplace of these clan to know who they are and know the area where they have been."

In Spain he created abstract work featuring vivid colors and bold-spirited lines. He also began studying female form and perspective in his art.

"I was interested in women in the female point of view," he said. "I've done landscapes, I've done still lifes, on the contrary to me, the female figure nears the life and the beauty of nature. It is a more render free of access way to go, it not ever ends."

In 1989 he mov to Toronto, "for a visit," Shojaei said.

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason Toronto? "Why not?" he said. "I had at no time been to North America before, on the other hand I had lots of invitations from friends to draw near here. Toronto was a of recent origin story.

"You hang on the outside in Europe for a drawn out period of your life, and you approach to Toronto and it is a different world, a young city. There are a certain quantity of places you go, you set your feet down, and you say this is a place where I want to part with more time."

Shojaei has set considerable success in Toronto. At his initial exhibition there, he sold 15 of his 25 paintings. Encouraged by means of the strong response to his work, Shojaei decided to stay in Toronto for a hardly any months. "You look at what I paint now, and it exchanges right away. I've had a great rejoinder This is why I have stayed."

He doesn't wait for to remain in Toronto forever, however, and he still travels to Europe regularly. on the other hand as long as he continues to discover of recent origin energy and new truths in Toronto, he'll stay put