MAGBOULE SOBHANI (born 1921)
This is a story about art in one of its most purest forms I have ever seen. Art created by my grandmother-in-law who until two years ago had never produced a piece of art. Now her creative output is prolific and on a scale that would be remarkable even if she was not a 97 year old lady.
Magbole Sobhani Ebrahimi came to the UK from Iran in the 1980s with her husband Reza who was a tea merchant from Northern Iran, on the shore of the Caspian Sea. The Ebrahimis came to Britain to look after one of their sons, Arya, who had fled to Europe during the Iran-Iraq war and was suffering badly from post-traumatic stress obtained in this conflict.
Reza left all his business interests with relatives who had stayed back. Their son turned out to need more help than he initially expected and so they settled in London. In the meantime their relatives at home betrayed Rezaâs trust and appropriated all his business and properties for themselves.
When Reza died in 2015 at the age of 89 he had lost everything. Magbole, now in her mid-90s, suddenly started drawing with felt-tip pens on canvas provided by her son Arya who now is a diagnosed schizophrenic and horder of stationary materials.
Nobody has ever seen her produce any drawings before, now Magbole completes on to two canvasses a day, sometimes covered on both sides and on the edges. The volume of output is such that there are plastic bags full of canvases that we take away after every visit to her sheltered housing flat. She says the drawing alleviates her rheumatic pains so we do not want her to stop in case she thinks her place is filling up with too many artworks.
The drawings range from abstract patterns and naĂŻve depictions of birds and people often adorned with poems in Persian/Arabic writing (even after decades in the UK, Magboleâs English is very limited).
I have never met someone who produces art for arts sake such as this and at this age. It is not meant to be seen or produced to make money. It seems a straight outpouring of an old ladyâs soul directly onto canvas. It is reminiscent of Outsider Art, Art Brut or âMad Artâ â but Magbole is not mentally ill, actually she is remarkably lucid.
I think Magboleâs work deserves to be seen by a wider audience as it provides plenty of food for thought in our times. In the spirit of Art for Artâs sake this should not be an exhibition that self-promotes anything or anyone (apart from a good cause for charity maybe). I would like to see her works displayed in a highbrow gallery the such as White Cube or Newport Street Gallery (as opposed to a church hall under an Age Concern banner). Compared to many other works I have seen in such places Magboleâs art seems incredibly more powerful, urgent, poignant and covering contemporary themes of growing old, immigration and integration. I donât have much experience in organising such things and before I resort to a Kickstarter campaign or similar I wanted to see if anyone might be interested in helping out. Get in touch!
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