Saba Farhoudnia: Forsaken with a Side of Pickles—Artist Talk with Curator

This reception is part of the public educational programming for Forsaken with a Side of Pickles, Saba Farhoudnia's second solo exhibition at Fou Gallery.

Guided by the artist Saba Farhoudnia and the curator Nina Chkareuli-Mdivani, this event delves into the emotional and psychological dimensions of the artist's work. Farhoudnia’s new paintings examine what endures when cultural landmarks are abandoned or overtaken by nature. On multilayered, sanded gesso canvases, she uses acrylic and alcoholic ink to mark points of no return, balancing weighty themes with humor and a light-hearted undertone. Her work suggests that traces of presence persist even when perspective is uncertain — after all, subtle reminders of life continue to appear across her imagined landscapes. Much like the Zone described by the Strugatsky brothers in The Roadside Picnic, a novel that has influenced Farhoudnia’s thinking about these works, the landscapes possess uncanny qualities and may even help to regenerate the harmony we have long lost.

This program is presented as part of Civil Art’s public educational initiatives through its publishing platform—Civil Art Publishing.