The Lancet Oncology
Media Watch
Magazine

The exhibition interleaves themes of remembrance, desire, anatomy and radiology, and the essential testamentary nature of these ideas is what binds the emotional and scientific scraps of Mossaed's mixed-media constructions. If the artifacts of memory - snapshots and pressed flowers- invoked the presence of the now bygone , then in a way, orthographic marks of the imaging sciences - CT and MRI scans - witness the uniqueness of a patient's physiology. Nostalgia, loss, physics, and oncology come together to testify to the presence of a body at a particular emotional and physiological juncture.

Article in "The Lancet Oncology" written by Dr. Jeffery Kuo, Oncologist

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Mahvash makes use of every color on her palette, all depending, it would seem, on her momentary mood. In fact, it is the passionate and the poetic that is most often evident in her art. Her paintings are remarkably honest too, displaying the pleasantness and positiveness that is typical of the artist herself.

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Weekly Review

She reveals a playful spirit and a tutored talent for combining joy and naïveté with controlled, well-disciplined creativity. Her work is warm, intimate and exceedingly personal. She finds inspiration in human relations, in fantasy, myth, and even dream creation, and yet she finds equal delight as a painter in fastidious concern for color, composition, and finding a perfect balance between restful harmony and decisive dynamism.

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The Oregonian

Iranian women, as every fan of stereotypes knows, are male-dominated, chador-clad and decidedly unliberated. Believe this and you will miss everything exciting about Mahvash Mossaed; an Iranian born woman whose paintings are exhibited at various galleries. There's unmistakable warmth that shines through her paintings. They glow with color and emotion. They leap back and forth from the resonance of an early Matisse to a Persian variant on a Judaic legend.

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Chicago Tribune

At the heart of the show are paintings by Mahvash, an Iranian born painter and poetess, whose work shines with strong bright colors and filigree designs that sometimes spill over from the canvas to the frame.

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Artesian
Magazine of upwelling art and creativity

Mahvash's paintings are imaginative in design and conception. The aesthetic simplicity of its style identifies with a timelessness that is universal.

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Interior design

Mahvash's paintings range from expressionistic selection of forms and colors to multicolored folk pieces. Her work denotes an impressive talent and an ability to create a direct and intimate relationship with her viewer.

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Willamette week

Mahvash has been praised for her use of color and her vitality and humor. Her paintings are surreal in nature, autobiographical, and full of rhythm and texture.

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The Vancouver Sun

In Mahvash's paintings one can view an arresting mixture of real and unreal. If we were to take her people and objects at their face value, they appear familiar: cats, doves, fruit, flowers, men, and women. But these are the very same things that are allegorical too, where meaning may seem alien to those who do not inhabit the artist's particular world.

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Sheridan Sansegundo

Mahvash's paintings are "primitive", a term which derives from primitive cultures, and an almost-obsessive focus upon detail. This approach draws more upon the artist's inner feelings, which in turn creates a seemingly naïve approach to spatial relationships and accepted drawing techniques. Primitive definitely, but behind her images is a highly developed concept. In this exhibition she has brought together a cohesive body of work, which expresses the importance of primitive art in today's society.

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Irvine world news

Mahvash's work has to do with women and women's issues. She paints everyday life, things that affect her, one day happy, one day mad. Her work is "dreamlike" and "spiritual." Her expression of a little girl within, comes out in her painting "little girl found," in which all her selves, young, present, and the future older women she will become are united.

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The American Visionary Art Museum
HolyH2O: Fluid Universe exhibition.
October 2, 2004 to September 4, 2005.

Lifetimes
... A painting that captures our everyday immersion in water is Mahvash Mossaed's "Woman in Shower," which depicts a woman's body completely involved in this daily ...

 

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Painted Dreams Book Reviews

SMALL PRESS BOOK REVIEW
Henry BerryMossaed is a woman from Iran who has lived in Canada, Africa, and Europe with her husband who is an architect for the United Nations. Her paintings and poems are broadly humanistic with a special appeal for women with their tenderness, hopefulness, and changeable sense of identity. Her paintings, many of women with distorted but not grotesque shape, and her poems on subjects such as beauty, home, aging, and youth, some of which include musings about God, have a dreamy quality going along with the breadth of Mossaed's background, the humanness of her femininity, and the universality of her feelings and view. The paintings shown in the book are in shades of brown, the color of the text and cover also. Several full-color gift cards accompanying the review copy better convey the richness and distinctiveness of Mossaed's painting. Information on the book, the full-color cards, and exhibitions of her artwork in the U. S. and other countries can be obtained by contacting her at her address or email given in the heading of this review.

ASIAN ART NEWS

My Painted Dreams, a stirring collection of art and poetry by Mahvash Mossaed, uncovers one woman's lifelong search for spiritual fulfillment in an often cold and indifferent world. The journey is at times an agonizingly solitary one. She searches for both answers and comfort from the people and the socially inflicted roles. One feels like a trusted guest invited into Mahvash's vulnerable interior world to partake in a soul's trying, but ultimately rewarding migration.

We emerge from this book in much the same way: renewed, serene, and whole. Mahvash has, as a skillful and gracious guide, given something back to the reader for daring to make it through. That gift is a word of advice from the other side of the journey, that we may only be midway through: that the pain of life is necessary in order to gain an appreciation for the rewards that await us on the other side of it. "Living was falling upside down/ In an empty void, hanging on to a piece of rope . . .All that so at last, I may embrace God."

To me, Mahvash has always captured the kunstwollen (the will to create) spirit which is also found in the works of many folk and outsider artists in the United States. Although, her work appears to be whimsical and stylized, it actually is very narrative and filled with deep seeds of emotion on every canvas and in every poem. Her creative spirit is directly linked to her daily experiences and to her relationships. Mahvash does not try to interpret and create conceptual or abstract works from these experiences, but aims to create art that is honest and true to her own spirit and being.

After many years of work, some artists begin to create art for others. Mahvash has always remained dedicated to painting and writing for herself first and foremost. That is what makes her work very powerful and honest.

Bijan
Designer
Mahvash has so many surprises inside her heart that I am truly astonished! The colors in her paintings reminds me of the colors I choose when designing my clothes Mahvash expresses herself in her poetry as being "only a traveler passing Through" I say in life we are all travelers passing through. The beautiful words written in her poetry has touched me deeply. And I am wishing her all the very best,

Designer

Artesian
Magazine of upwelling art and creativityIn My Painted Dreams, you may find yourself deep in thought with the correlation between the written word and the painted images. It is necessary to add that both are profound. To approach Mahvash's work, you have to let go of the excess baggage in your head and be ready to converge into the simplicity of human emotion. The poems like the pictures have a chronological arrangement that tell a story of a sensitive woman's life, a woman, who is in tune with herself and is in search of a greater spiritual fulfillment.Mahvash's book is imaginative in design and conception. The aesthetic simplicity of its style identifies with a timelessness that is universal. Rich in her images and perceptive in her poetry makes this book an extraordinary and rewarding experience.It has left me with a sense of peace that I have not realized for a long time.

Irvine world news

Mahvash's work has to do with women and women's issues. She paints everyday life, things that affect her, one day happy, one day mad. " The same comes trough in her poetry in "my painted dreams." There are such titles as "She makes a salad," "bad hair day," "the guests," "The tourist." The supermarket," "The perfect wife" All go deeper using symbolism and dream imagery much as she does in her paintings. Her work is "dreamlike" and "spiritual," for instance, She turns The simple act of chopping onions into a soul-searching poem. Her expression in her painting of a little girl within also comes out in her poem, "little girl found," in which all her selves, young, present, and The future older women She will become are united.

Rebecca Alban Hoffberger
Director/Founder of AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM

There is a sensitivity that at first sees itself as male or female, middle eastern, western, African, or Asian, but as it expresses itself from magma closer to its core, it transcends The outer flavors and learns to speak to each of us, all of us, of what is life itself. Such was, is, and ever-shall-be, The timelessness of Rumi. In My painted Dreams, author and Artist Mahvash Mossaed, sets out to express woman and The middle easterner, and Enters into The sunshine of beyond.

Maryam Ovissi
Director/Founder of Ovissi Gallery Mahvash writes with a voice filled with a range of emotion that all women can relate to. Both her paintings and poetry are a ramification of extreme emotions She experiences daily and even under The most mundane circumstances."My Painted Dreams" presents a wonderful selection of poetry well paired with paintings. It is almost as though She created each poem for The specific piece depicted...or perhaps vice versa.To me, Mahvash has always captured The kunstwollen (The will to create) spirit which is also found in The works of many folk and outsider artists in The United States. Although, her work appears to be whimsical and stylized, it actually is very narrative and filled with deep seeds of emotion on every canvas and in every poem. Her creative spirit is directly linked to her daily experiences and to her relationships. Mahvash does not try to interpret and create conceptual or abstract works from these experiences, but aims to create art that is honest and true to her own spirit and being.

After many years of work, some artists begin to create art for others. Mahvash has always remained dedicated to painting and writing for herself first and foremost. That is what makes her work very powerful and honest.