Our Veins, The Earth’s Veins 1969

Iran Darroudi made this painting called “Our Veins, The Earth’s Veins” and looking at it I'm struck by the contrast between its dark drama and delicate rendering. It's like she's wrestling with some big ideas about life, death, and the world around us. The brushstrokes in this work, heavy with shades of grey and fierce reds, create a stormy kind of scene. It feels almost apocalyptic with the city in the background, like a memory fading into a tempest. I think about the weight of the brush in her hand, how Darroudi applied the oil paint to the canvas. Did she attack the canvas to get to a truth? Was it like a slow burn? I see a lot of my concerns in her mark-making. The title of the painting makes me think that Darroudi was considering her relationship to a bigger world, making connections between her body and the planet. I see other painters doing this too, Cecily Brown, Joan Mitchell, all these artists digging in and pushing paint around to get somewhere new. It reminds us that art-making is an embodied practice that welcomes many voices.