Dorsa Asadi, “A sinner’s flesh should have an Immersion baptism,” Belle said, 2022
Iranian Nowruz celebrations begin with Chaharshanbe Suri, a ritual of purification, which involves jumping over flames and reciting in Farsi words meaning “May your redness be mine, and my pallor be yours.” Fire is a device for transformation. It cures ailments and gives new life.
For her exhibition “Strange Fruit,” Dorsa Asadi joined the transformative power of fire with a narrative structure derived from Dante. Small glossily glazed ceramic sculptures resting on raised tables arranged in clusters across the room took the form of plants, bodies of water, flames, and human figures that together laid out a journey of ascension via a path of destruction. Taking a page from the Divine Comedy, Asadi divided the exhibition into three parts: “Inferno,” “Purgatory,” and “Paradiso.”
The colorful style of the works, as well as the character names indicated in the titles, turn Dante’s epic into a gruesome Grimm’s fairy tale with a Disney makeover. The first piece was “A sinner’s flesh should have an Immersion baptism,” Belle said, 2022. The miniature scene depicts a variety of flora and what might be a glint of flames surrounding an elevated body of turquoise water. Occupying the shallow pool are two figures with chalky-white skin, wearing pale-yellow dresses. One has long red hair while the other’s is cool blue, recalling the colors you’d see in a fire. Their hands are bloody. They stand over a third, unclothed body, pink and featureless. The redhead seems to be digging her fingers into the naked figure’s face. In Elle leading the sinnerman through the Inferno, 2022, a naked body appears hunched over on all fours, flames bursting out of his back. The blue-haired figure stands overhead with her legs between those of the naked body, positioned like an instructor directing the blazing body into annihilation.