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[Art21 "Extended Play"]

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["Tala Madani: Sketchbooks"]

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When I'm working,

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I draw in the mornings,
when I come to the studio

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--Obama!
[LAUGHS]

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There is this great story in Iran--

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I think it was written in the '60s.

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This is something that
every Iranian knows about.

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It's called "'Shahr-e Gheseh"

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which means
"the city of stories".

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All the characters are animals.

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And the prettiest character is this cockroach.

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One of the parts of the story is that

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this elephant who's new to town--

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nobody knows her

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and they are really bewildered by
its appearance.

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And they start reshaping it.

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They cut off the trunk in bits,

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and then the elephant can't recognize itself,
of course--

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it's sort of this loss of identity.

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A lot of works from this show

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were worked out more thoroughly in sketches.

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It's the most immediate record
of a thinking process, isn't it?

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This didn't make it.

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This was too violent.

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In a year, I'll come to something like this

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that I didn't really work with in this show.

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Some things in the sketchbooks
lead to the future works.

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I think they're a great way of
keeping track of your ideas,

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because you don't necessarily have time
or the space to investigate each idea

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as fully as you'd want.

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It's good to catch them

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if you're in the space where ideas are flowing.

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This is a sketch for "Dirty Protest".

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So, in a way, I kind of knew this painting--

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the image of it--
a long time in my head, I think.

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So, the sketch of it was just, sort of,
a notation for me,

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but I knew what I wanted to do.

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The thing that's different with painting

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is its materiality.

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It's not to suggest at all that it's ever
about paint.

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It's more about how do you use the material

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to help you communicate the idea clearer.

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If there's drips happening,

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I really engage those drips
into bringing the audience

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quite close to where I am.

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That it's really about this idea again.

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Let's not get too preoccupied with
a kind of

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perspectival concern or depth concern.

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That this is really paint speaking to you.

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That messes with your read of space.

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I really love this idea that
the painting itself has a life.

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In a way, it's about transference of energy,
I really think.

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There is this seventeenth-century idea
that paintings actually had souls,

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and they were given souls by demons or angels--

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and demons were not necessarily
a bad collaborator to have.

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If anyone is interested in
looking at a painter at work,

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you just have to follow the brushstrokes.

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So, you're seeing the action of the hand,
but also the action of the thought,

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ideally,

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in following the brushstroke.