A painter uses color as a means to better express his/her painting. Samely many other artists see wood as a means to create works of arts. I believe woods speak for themselves. Patterns, textures and colors of wood, are all like letters which once put together conveniently, reveal their magic language. Their language must be comprehended thoroughly in order to be able to add to their literature.
Saeed Arzegan, born in 1981, showed his artistic interest and talent in painting, calligraphy and wooden handy crafts from childhood. When he was 17, and in a very accidental visit to a wood carving (monabbat) exhibition of Master Abdolhamid Edalat-e Shirazi, eagerly became one of the master’s apprentices. He then learned both monabbat and moarragh wood arts from the master very well. Relying on his creativity and pursuit, he progressed very fast in both of these arts.
From the very beginning, his idealistic feelings and emotions has made him watch and learn very carefully, but not for imitation and duplication. He has not shown to be a type of person to be bound to one single way and has always searched for new methods and ideas. He was looking for a new path about which nobody had ever thought. This might be the reason he has never created a work twice and has never started a work solely for financial causes.
During several years, he has done his best to learn all methods and styles of moarragh wood art and apply them in his works; however, in 2009, he decided to start a very specific work which can best satisfy his ambitions; a work with features like no other. This turned to become a motivation for him to start a work which he himself named as “The Magic of Wood” after he finished it; a superb work which is abundant with the energy and wonder of wood. The painting which this exquisite work of moarragh illustrates refers to a sweet story of Imam Reza’s tenderness and compassion, named “the guarantor of the gazelle” which has originally been painted by famous Iranian painter master Mahmoud Farshchian.
In creating his moarragh work, Saeed Arzegan has put aside all the conventional methods he had learned and made new creativities and innovations in order to achieve the quality he has had in mind. This led him to invent three unique methods in execution and general framework of moarragh work on wood. His exquisite work was finished in 2015 after 6 years of constant work. He has used 80,000 wood particles of 150 different types of trees for it. He traveled all around Iran to get these colorful woods from every corner of the country and illustrate them in a work with dimensions of 123*143 cm, which shows a very special and unique natural diversity of Iran.
“The magic of wood” was exhibited in Sa’adabad Museum of Tehran in May 2016, where Master Mahmoud Farshchian first got to see it closely and was astonished by it.
Also, this moarragh work was officially unveiled for the first time in the international opening event of “Mashhad; The Cultural Capital of the Islamic World” exhibition which was held in January-February 2017, with cultural ministers and senior officials of 52 Islamic countries.
He believes making no progress means rotting. Saeed Arzegan wants to use the element of wood in his moarragh works with a different approach and is seeking to find new creative ways and methods to help this art progress; ways and methods which have not been thought of ever before and can give an independent personality to wood to integrate into the moarragh works.