BPL displaying the work of Mitra Dejkameh

The walls of the Baldwin Public Library atrium are a highly desirable place for up-and-coming artists to display their work. Applications for showings pour into the BPL and, according to Sharon Bernard, the librarian who evaluates the submissions, the exhibit area is booked into 2013.

While the atrium has displayed the efforts of numerous artists over the years, rarely have its walls showcased the work of one with as eclectic a back story as Mitra Dejkameh. “We felt Mitra’s artwork was colorful, abstract and appealing to all tastes,” Bernard said of Dejkameh’s selection as an exhibitor. “It will be a change from the more realistic exhibits we have recently displayed.”

Dejkameh, a 44-year-old Oceanside-based painter whose work will adorn the atrium until the end of the month, is studying for a graduate degree in creative arts therapy at Hofstra University. Her intent is to, as she puts it, “promote the therapeutic value of art and help people work with their unique strengths and challenges.”

As interesting as her future appears, her past is equally intriguing. Dejkameh was born in Iran, where she was formally educated at a French school. With the dawn of the Islamic Revolution in 1978, she relocated to Istanbul, Turkey, just before the Iran-Iraq war began. In Turkey, Dejkameh pursued an art education at the Mimar Sinan Academy of Arts and also began illustrating children’s stories.

Her work won critical approval, and some of her illustrations were selected to represent Istanbul at the Bologna, Italy Children’s Book Illustrators Exhibition in 1987. They were also published in the “Children’s Book Illustrator’s Catalog” that year. Dejkameh earned degrees in visual arts, theater, stage and costume design and went on to design sets and costumes for several shows, including August Strindberg’s “Ms. Julie,” Jean Genet’s “The Balcony” and Peter Handke’s “Ride Across Lake Constance.”

While working in theater, she kept working on her visual art. She created abstract drawings, watercolors and oil paintings, finding inspiration in Istanbul’s rich archaeological heritage.

Dejkameh’s work is also influenced by the written word — which makes the Baldwin Library an even more fitting venue for a showcase. “I feel very connected to Persian poetry and French, Russian and German literature and philosophy,” she said of her influences. She cited French philosophers Gille Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault and writers such as Proust, Kafka and Dostoevsky as some of her favorites. “I am interested in the construct of the poetic using memory as it translates into layers of color, line and texture,” she said.

Dejkameh immigrated to the U.S. in 1999 to pursue her studies at Hofstra. She also works at New Visions Elementary School in Freeport. She continues to paint, and has exhibited work at a number of public libraries and private galleries in Brooklyn and Nassau County as well as in group shows on Long Island and in Manhattan.

Dejkameh explains that her art seeks to explore not only the various spheres of existence she has inhabited, but also the spaces in between. “My concentration lies in the intermixture of the essence of emptiness (open space-silence) and movement during the creative process,” she said.” In my work, I do not intend to express a specific form of a single culture, since I feel connected to many cultures.”

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