A Small, Simple Deception

Shirin Gallery in Tehran presents A Small, Simple Deception, a solo exhibition of paintings by Arghavan Borujeni, on view from 16 to 27 October 2026. The selection on the gallery's website lists 13 untitled works in acrylic on canvas, all made in 2025 and 2026. They range from small canvases of 20 by 20 centimetres to two large pieces measuring 160 by 240 centimetres.

Installation views show the larger canvases hung singly in the white rooms of the gallery. Tables draped in pale cloth recur across the paintings, set with plates, candelabra and small objects. In one wide canvas, red folding chairs stand around a low table in front of a grid of lit windows. Another places plants and grazing animals below the bare frame of a building. Two of the works belong to a series titled That Delightful Lie, dated 2025.

The gallery describes the paintings as minimal and simple at first sight but heavy with feeling and memory. Needless detail is stripped away, and the scenes are not drawn from the natural world outside. According to the gallery, a quiet sense of celebration runs through the work, carried by colours that recall old memories and by objects tied to childhood, among them Pinocchio. The pictures do not tell a fixed story; the gallery presents each one as a view inward.

Borujeni was born in Boroujen in 1988. She studied painting at the University of Art in Neyshabur and took a master's degree at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran. This is her fifth solo exhibition at Shirin Gallery, following Revolving Play in 2020, Celebration in 2022, Second Celebration in 2024 and Arghavan's Celebration in 2025. The first two were shown under the name Marziye Ghasempour. The gallery, on 13th Street off Sanaee Street, opens daily from 11am to 7pm and on Fridays from 4pm to 8pm. It is closed on Mondays.