When Words Pass Through Reading: Ali Valadbeigi on the Artistic World of Ehsan Yeganeh

In an era when machines produce and reproduce images in seconds, Ehsan Yeganeh has chosen a different path with his innovative "Qatashi" technique. The artist turns the boundary between writing and image into a fresh experience by cutting, coloring and arranging thousands of words side by side. Ali Valadbeigi, an international documentary filmmaker and calligrapher, examines the artistic world of this Iranian artist in an essay.

Sometimes art begins where an artist decides to look again at what we have taken for granted for centuries; By writing, by word, by hand and by the long-standing relationship of man with signs that have made the memory of civilization. Ehsan Yaganeh starts from this point; From where the word is no longer just read, but seen, touched, and becomes an independent experience of beauty in a new context.

The line is one of the most amazing achievements of mankind in the path of civilization; A legacy that brought thought out of the fence of the individual mind and entrusted it to the collective memory of man. But handwriting, throughout history, has always been more than just recording words. In brilliant moments in the history of art, the line has moved away from its conventional function and entered a realm where form, movement, rhythm, composition and even the silence between signs become the bearer of an artistic experience.

In the history of Iranian art, the attempt to liberate calligraphy from the limitations of mere writing has a remarkable background. From the leading experiences in calligraphy to the evolution of modern art and the formation of currents such as Saqaqhana and calligraphy, many artists have tried to redefine the relationship between tradition and innovation. They have reminded us that artistic heritage survives when there is the possibility of questioning, transformation and re-creation.

However, the importance of Ehsan Yaganeh should not be sought only along this historical path. What stands out when dealing with his works is the attempt to open a different horizon in dealing with writing; The horizon in which the word is separated from its familiar position to experience another possibility of presence and meaning in a new structure.

Yeganeh, by inventing the "Qatashi" art style, has turned the relationship between line, material and image into a special experience. In his world, the word is not just a linguistic sign; It is a material that can be cut, painted, put together with other pieces and create a new world from its collection. This transformation is not just a change in the appearance of writing; It is a change in the way of facing it.

In the works of Ehsan Yeganeh, the word crosses the page; From the realm of reading to the realm of seeing, he finds a new identity in this journey.

What distinguishes this experience from many conventional image production methods is the decisive role of the human hand in the creation process. At a time when digital technologies and smart tools have made it possible to produce and reproduce the image at an unprecedented speed, the sole chooses another path; A path in which time is not an obstacle to production, but a part of the identity of the work.

In his large works, sometimes with dimensions of about six meters by two meters, thousands of words are cut with scissors. Each piece goes through its own special steps; From cutting and coloring to being placed in the intended position in the final composition of the work. What emerges at the end is the result of sitting together, each of which has a part of the artist's time, concentration, skill and lived experience.

Here, the hand is not merely a means of executing a predetermined plan; The hand participates in the formation of the logic of the work. Every cut, every choice and every movement is part of the path of creation. In such a process, repetition does not mean soulless reproduction of an action; It becomes an exercise to discover new relationships between components.

From this point of view, the unique art can be seen as a dialogue between two basic concepts: memory and now. Words carry with them traces of language and history; But when they are placed in a new structure, they go beyond the scope of their conventional meaning and create another experience in the board of visual elements. The past is present in his works, but it is not a frozen and museum presence; The past becomes the living material for building the present.

This characteristic brings us to a fundamental question about the nature of art: is the value of a work only in the image that is placed before our eyes, or is it also hidden in the path that that image traveled to be created?

In the artistic world of Ehsan Yeganeh, the answer should be sought in the connection between the result and the process. The final work, although it may seem like a combination of words, colors and pieces at first glance, is actually a long time carrier; The time spent in the silence of the workshop, in the frequent movement of the hand, in the precision of the cuts and in the successive decisions of the artist. This time cannot simply be separated from the work because it is part of the experience that shaped it.

Here, art reminds us that not everything can be measured by speed. Sometimes the value of an experience lies precisely in the time it took to form it; In a patience that allows the parts to gradually find their place and create a meaningful whole.

Of course, the importance of this method should not be reduced to the difficulty of execution or the number of parts used in the works. Suffering and time alone do not guarantee artistic value. What gives meaning to this effort is the artist's ability to transform a difficult process into a coherent language with a visual identity; A language that the audience can pause in front of, discover its details and, through it, form new questions about line and image in their mind.

Therefore, "Qatashi" should be examined in the relationship between the method of execution and the intellectual world of its creator. The importance of such an experience becomes more obvious when we find out how the artist uses the capacities of writing, cutting, color and composition to create a work that is not only written and not only a decorative image; Rather, he searches for the possibility of a new language at the border between these realms.

For me, as a documentary maker and calligrapher, one of the valuable aspects of such an experience is the issue of recording the human presence in the work of art. Documentation, in its deepest sense, is an attempt to preserve moments, experiences and signs that may be lost over time. Calligraphy also, beyond the rules and appearances, has a long-standing connection with hand movement, concentration of mind and transfer of experience from one generation to another.

In Yaganeh's works, these two concerns come close to each other in a thought-provoking way. By reusing words, he returns to material worn out by everyday repetition and places it in a new position. A word that we have seen many times, this time prompts us to pause; Not just to read it, but to see its shape, color, position and relationship with its surroundings, and this is the moment when art questions our habit of looking.

Original art does not necessarily mean breaking away from the past; Sometimes the most profound innovation occurs when an artist approaches a familiar heritage, but sees it from a new angle. Ehsan Yeganeh realizes such a possibility when faced with Khat. Rather than merely repeating familiar forms, he introduces the word into a process in which its lesser-seen capacities are revealed.

Of course, the historical position of each art style and its influence ultimately depends on the dialogue between critics, researchers, artists and audiences, as well as its continuity and evolution over time. However, the experiences that pose a new question to art are worth serious reflection and investigation; Especially when they re-examine our relationship with cultural heritage and the possibilities of contemporary art.

Ehsan Yeganeh, with the "cut" method, directs our attention from the final product to the moments of its formation; With the hands that cut, paint, choose and make. In this world, words do not only carry linguistic meaning; They become signs of time, memory and human presence.

Perhaps his artistic world can be summed up in a simple image: the words that have been separated from the page, the scissors that have moved many times, the hands that have worked in silence, and the time that should have passed for a collection of small parts to become an artistic whole.

But what remains of this image is not just a paper cut. What remains is a reminder of the fact that art, even in the era of endless reproduction of images, can still be the arena of human presence, patience and creation.

Ehsan Yeganeh reminds us that sometimes to see a word again, it has to be separated from its usual place; And sometimes, in order to hear the new voice of history, one must allow the human hand to write it anew in silence and patience.

This, in my opinion, is one of the most valuable possibilities that can be considered in his artistic world and in the creative experience of "Qatashi".