This series is in porcelain fired in single firing at 1300 degrees, entirely in modeling (very precise and careful work) and are unique pieces.
H 35 cm x L 29 cm x 25 cm
 
The series of 8 sculptures entitled “To be or to become” is a concept based on the philosophy of existentialism “man is nothing other than his project, he only exists to the extent that he is realized, he is therefore nothing other than the totality of his actions, nothing other than his life”.
 
These porcelain sculptures give this feeling, despite their scars, of being in a perpetual rebirth.
 
Both timeless and permanent, they offer their fragility, a quiet present with elegance and without artifice. Beauty is thus accepted as an irreversible process towards voluntary withdrawal from the world that is too ugly, too noisy, too invasive.
 
Hence perhaps this enigmatic gravity. The posture of the head, the absence of a smile or a look, ultimately, this contemplation.
 
 
About Mariam Azad:
 
"Originally from Iran and trained as an architect, I am now a visual artist. Political and social art is my favorite field. My work develops the question of the “cause of women” and the power of social control over their bodies. The human form, in particular the face and the compulsive search for matter fuel my creativity. I often use history or human experience to conduct sculptural inquiry. My work is concerned with identity and a personal obsession with revealing the hidden, exposing suffering and pressure, mending broken ideas and exploring duality. I try to translate an inner being through a disturbed surface, creating new and different visual conversations. The processes of destruction and repair study aspects of trauma and healing, rejuvenation and change. From figurative realism to material abstraction, I discover ways to parallel the creative process with altered states and attuned minds in a quest to explore what it is to be a woman and especially an Iranian woman. and the permanent social pressure exerted on it. The formality of ancient Egyptian art, the classicism of Bernini, the madness of Messerschmitt, are my inspirations.
 
The whiteness of the porcelain evoking the purity and the blue of the ink poured on the face and the body of the naked women bring out the feminine sweetness and the perfume of freedom of the right to dispose of their bodies. The choice of the small size of the sculptures evokes the greatly reduced rights of these women in the face of the immensity of the political and social pressures they are subjected to." - says the artist.