Please note: the gallery will be closed on Friday, April 18, for the statutory holiday. We will be open at regular hours on April 19.

February 1 to April 26, 2025

Maryam Taghavi: Unfolding Worlds

مریم تقوی: جهانهای عیان‌شونده

Square galleries

(Click here for a Persian version of this page.)

In Unfolding Worlds, Maryam Taghavi exhibits recent paintings, sculptures, and an architectural installation that transforms space and expands language in ways that direct us to consider the unseen.

Taghavi is motivated by what lies beyond the visible. This pursuit is embodied through her exploration of letter forms—particularly in Islamic calligraphy, which conveys reverence and a connection to the spiritual realm. In Unfolding Worlds, artworks radiate from the concept of the noghte. The noghte is the most essential diacritical mark in Arabic and Persian script; it is also used as a unit of measurement in calligraphy and is represented by a diamond-shaped point.

The diamond-shape is a visually rich marker not only for calligraphy but also abstract art. Abstraction relies on non-representational forms to focus on colour, gesture, and simplified shapes to evoke ideas and meaning. Drawing upon Islamic and Western art traditions, Taghavi manipulates light, language, and architectural space in ways that emphasize the simplicity and beauty inherent in deep colours and geometric forms. In displaying a series of paintings and sculptures, Taghavi has enabled each to be presented in a slightly different state, unfolding or revealing more of their internal logic at each encounter, thus encouraging audiences to see the cultural, art historical, and spiritual richness that lies within a given form.

In Maryam Taghavi: Unfolding Worlds, Taghavi invites viewers to expand their sense of perception through refined geometries and abstractions of language that are indebted to histories of art, cultures, and philosophies that shape our world today.

Maryam Taghavi is a Tehran-born, Iranian-Canadian artist and educator based in Chicago. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was the recipient of The New Artist Society Scholarship. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Taghavi has exhibited her work widely, including the recent commission A Spell for Passage, permanently installed at O’Hare International Airport Terminal 5, Chicago, and her solo exhibitions Chicago Works: Maryam Taghavi, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and A Leap Has No Return, Blanc Gallery, Chicago, all 2024. Taghavi has had additional solo and group shows at institutions such as LAXART, Queens Museum, Museo Ex Teresa, Chicago Cultural Center, EXPO, Driehaus Museum, Chicago Artists Coalition, The University Club, and Sazmanab Gallery, among others. Taghavi has received numerous awards and grants, including support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the 2022 Artadia Award.