Sahar Ghavami Pat-an-ache (2025)

framed: 150h × 180w cm

Acrylic on canvas

'Pat-an-ache' revisits a formative perceptual state in which distinctions between the animate and inanimate were not yet stabilized. The work draws on a childhood logic where anthropomorphism is not imposed, where objects and animals occupy the same relational field as human subjects, without hierarchy or qualification. At the center of the composition, a familiar gesture unfolds: hands meet in the rhythm of a children’s game, aligned in scale and position. The symmetry is deliberate, establishing a temporary equivalence between the figures. Yet this exchange is mediated by a transparent barrier. The glass introduces a structural separation, suggesting future shifts and approaching distance. Within Ghavami’s broader practice, such moments point to the gradual imposition of categories, between subject and object, human and non-human, that reorganize early modes of connection. The title, 'Pat-an-ache', marks this transition. It registers the persistence of the original gesture alongside an awareness of its loss, situating the work in a space where connection is no longer fully accessible.