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<\/a>\n\t\tArtist Farideh Golbahar with her husband, Eli Said Golbahar, in her Jerusalem studio, May 2026 (Jessica Steinberg\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n
Golbahar\u2019s latest exhibit, \u201cBeyond Garden,\u201d is now open at Tel Aviv\u2019s Artists House and will run through July 11, showing works from the last years and decades of this fruitful painter.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the latest in a long series of museum exhibits and gallery showings for Golbahar, including her inaugural 1957 display at the Iran-Italy Biennale of Art in Tehran, group exhibits at the Israel Museum, and solo showings at the Ramat Gan Museum of Art and other institutions.<\/p>\n
Golbahar has been painting her version of gardens for decades, usually breaking an arboretum into four or six sections on her paper canvas, each one showing elements of a garden from different angles, both microscopic and magnified.<\/p>\n
\t One section might show a magnified flower, while another could be filled with dozens of blossoms in a Persian rug-like pattern. A larger rectangle may stretch across the top half of the painting, showing a small lake dotted with lily pads.<\/p>\n There are often palm trees as well, the date palms that Golbahar never saw before she moved to Israel, and the presence of the strong Israeli sun, whose light saturates everything in its path.<\/p>\n Coincidentally, their last name, Golbahar, means spring flower in Persian.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have the look of Monet and Tehran, but they\u2019re mine,\u201d said Golbahar, showing paintings at her apartment storeroom, located in the maze of rooms surrounding the underground parking lot. \u201cIt\u2019s all of my worlds together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s all of my worlds together\u2019<\/p>\n Her studio is situated in another nearby storeroom, set up with a table, her paints and brushes, and a radio so she can listen to the news and music as she paints.<\/p>\n Golbahar began taking painting lessons as a child in Tehran, where she first painted oils on paper, a combination that has stayed with her all these years.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved paper,\u201d said Golbhar. \u201cI never switched to canvas. The paper absorbs the color.\u201d<\/p>\n There is something fantastical about Golbahar\u2019s gardens, a seemingly Persian symbol of her Tehran childhood. Yet Golbahar says her mystical gardens draw from many parts of her life, including her years spent in Europe and Israel, in addition to Tehran.<\/p>\n \t She was the eldest daughter of five, her father a lawyer, their Jewish family well-to-do and secular.<\/p>\n They sometimes said the blessing over wine on Friday nights and always bought some matzah on Passover. Golbahar remembers her mother making marzipan, an almond delicacy, for the holiday.<\/p>\n She also remembers being one of two Jews in her school class and studying the Quran along with the rest of the students.<\/p>\n Working as an artist wasn\u2019t an acceptable career option in her family, where she and her siblings were expected to become white-collar professionals, like their father.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s democracy was already failing in the late 1960s, with the country suffering from great poverty and strife.<\/p>\n The Golbahars were living in Germany in 1967, and Israel\u2019s Six Day War made an impression upon them. They returned to Iran in 1969 with their baby daughter and began thinking about Israel as an option.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were proud that there was an Israel, that we were Jews, and we wanted to live somewhere where we wouldn\u2019t be a minority,\u201d said Eli. \u201cTehran\u2019s Jewish community felt like a ghetto to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tFrom artist Farideh Golbahar\u2019s work, \u2018About Landscape,\u2019 oil on paper (Courtesy)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tFrom artist Farideh Golbahar\u2019s work, \u2018About Landscape,\u2019 oil on paper (Courtesy)<\/p>\n