Sahar Ghavami Moments before the fire caught up (2/2) (2025)

framed: 60h × 140w cm

Acrylic on canvas

'Moments before the fire caught up' is structured as a diptych, staging a tension between shelter and inevitability. On one panel, a girl and her cat occupy a compressed interior space, folded into a gesture of closeness - a tender hug. On the other, a field opens outward, where fire advances toward a row of echinacea, “those stubborn pink blooms that speak of immunity, of resilience, of a body trying to protect itself". The work frames fire not as an external force alone, but as an internal condition. Within the context of Sahar Ghavami’s practice, informed by her autoimmune condition, the image extends beyond environmental threat to suggest a form of internalized disruption, “the particular cruelty of an autoimmune disease that burns from within”, where the body itself becomes a site of conflict. Not resolving this tension, the composition holds it in suspension, as the moment of embrace persists alongside the understanding of its limit. “Before it reaches the last flower, there is still this: one more embrace, one more moment inside the house that holds her. The fire may be coming. But it has not arrived yet”, the artist notes.