In her series “A Flower Doesn’t Have a Backside”, Sofia Pashaei draws inspiration from her Iranian heritage. Being brought up in Sweden by Iranian parents, Pashaei feels many customs were lost on her or learnt along the way. One of the customs she learnt early on was not to sit with one’s back against someone in gatherings, especially not the elderly. An unforgettable memory from her youth remains vivid: a dinner event hosted by her parents where she unintentionally placed herself with her back against an Iranian grandmother who was a friend of her parents. She quickly realized her mistake and apologized with her limited Iranian language skills. The old lady looked at her and said, “Don’t worry dear, a flower doesn’t have a backside”. It occurs to her that the Iranian language has a lot of these poetic idioms inspired by nature. Who is to say which side of a flower is the front or back? It always made her wonder why these idioms were so cleverly pointing out the core of human interaction but how we got stuck in these customs that could easily alienate and create unnecessary drama anyway.

In this painting, the flowers are etched into the bodies of the figures – as if the culture has stepped into their very core.