Our fascination with shells is both universal and deeply personal. Their beauty, symmetry and complexity have inspired entire cultures and continue to captivate artists, architects and musicians. Encountering them often produces a feeling that is di cult to explain, as though they had arrived from another world. For Siyavash Ghassemzadehgan, one such encounter took place in front of "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli. Fascinated by the monumental structure supporting the goddess, the artist embarked on an investigation that led him from the observation of a natural form to mythology and, from there, to architecture.
There is a parallel between the development of these organisms and the sculptural process. Built slowly, layer by layer, shells record the passage of time within their own material structure. Similarly, Ghassemzadehgan’s works emerge through the accumulation and transformation of materials, resulting in forms that appear shaped by geological or architectural processes unfolding over long periods.
The resulting sculptures—"Venus Anadyomene", "Nin-An-Ak" and "Aredvi Sura Anahita"—explore connections between different traditions associated with water, fertility and the origins of life. Although they belong to distinct cultural contexts, these figures share stories and symbols that have travelled across cultures and eras. Such continuities reflect the ways in which later societies frequently looked to established traditions as sources of authority, meaning and aesthetic inspiration, adapting inherited motifs to new contexts while preserving traces of their origins. And here, rather than depicting the goddesses literally, the works focus on the links between their narratives and the persistence of certain motifs over time.
This investigation also connects with rocaille, an ornamental style that emerged in eighteenth- century Europe and drew inspiration from shells, rocks, water and vegetation. Its dynamic and irregular compositions seemed to grow organically, blurring the boundaries between nature and architecture.
The shell became one of its most characteristic motifs because it appears to belong to both worlds. Its radiating flutes recall the grooves of classical columns, while its curved interior evokes a vessel, a shelter or a place of emergence. This ambiguity finds an echo in Ghassemzadehgan’s sculptures, whose forms simultaneously suggest geological remains, architectural fragments and organic structures.
Made from geopolymer or cement, the works resemble vestiges of lost structures that have been altered by time. As in much of the artist’s practice, they occupy a space between ruin and invention, between archaeological discovery and contemporary construction.
