Sahar Ghavami A gentle waltz with pain (2025)

framed: 80h × 60w cm

Acrylic on canvas

'A gentle waltz with pain' frames love as a movement between attraction and limitation. The composition adopts the structure of a dance, where proximity is sustained through rhythms of love and pain that, as the artist notes, “when they last long enough, begin to move like partners". At the center, a black cat, dressed in a tuxedo, assumes the role of lead, while the figure in red follows in a suspended turn. The pairing establishes a dynamic of push and pull - "a relationship that is beautiful and costly in equal measure". Within Ghavami’s practice, animals often occupy shifting roles of dependency and protection; here, that dynamic is extended through the artist’s ongoing negotiation with physical constraint. Informed by her autoimmune condition, the work reflects what it means “to love animals deeply with a body that cannot always afford it".