Azadeh Ghotbi at Victoria Law Projects 

Azadeh Ghotbi is an Iranian American artist living and working in London, showing two series: Nature of Light and The Shape of Light. Initially a painter in the tradition of abstract geometry, Ghotbi began embracing photography as a complementary medium to sharpen her sense of observation and focus on light. “I owe photography a whole new way of seeing“, she says. Her photographs are light paintings that challenge the stillness of photography. Instead of freezing for a moment, her photographs appear to “unfreeze” as if the click of the camera were an injection of energy. Shot entirely in the mountains of Norway, The Nature of Light series is based on the alchemy between changing natural light, time, movement, and space. The artist liberated herself from prior static in-studio work by fluidly moving her camera, as she would her paintbrush, to capture the essence of the colours provided by natural light. Digital pixels appear like brushstrokes, blurring the line between painting and photography while playing with the viewer’s sense of perception. In London, Ghotbi trailed her lens on city lights, shooting entirely in the darkness of the urban night, which gave rise to The Shape of Light series. The artist says, “The magic of photography for me is capturing and sharing what’s already there, but others may not see.” A powerful, uplifting tonic to the problematic space she occupies as an Iranian woman of the diaspora.