Fatemeh Andikfar became a finalist in the UNESCO painting contest with works inspired by Goddess Anahita and the Achaemenid sardis.
According to ECO Cultural Institute, quoted by Honaronline, The UNESCO painting competition is held every year for different age groups. Fatemeh Andikfar of Iran rose to the final in 2019 and 2020.
Andikfar, now a graphics student, told Honaronline: "Since I was a child, I liked painting and the arts, and I started painting since I was in primary school," she said. "in 2014, I attended Firouzeh Golmohammadi classes and was trained under her. I also exhibited my works at two public exhibitions in 2018 and 2019. I participated in the UNESCO Contest four times. I advanced to the final in the past two years, and was the only representative of Iran in my age group in 2019 when I was chosen as a finalist", she added.
"The competition was supposed to be canceled this year due to the coronavirus outbreak, but it was recently announced that the judges had reviewed the works and the best ones had been presented. Still, an exhibition that used to be held in previous years showing select works was suspended along with the award ceremony", she said.
She continued: "I participated in the 18-25 age group. Every year in the fall, a call for participation is released and the organizers announce a theme, so that all interested parties can submit papers on that theme. The first year I participated, the theme was 'water.' The second year, it was 'global peace', the third year 'ancient scripts and monuments' of each country, and the fourth year, the theme was 'our planet, yesterday and today".
Andikfar explained about his two jobs that had advanced to the final saying: "For the contest with the theme 'ancient scripts and monuments' from each country, I went to the National Museum and saw different works there. I wanted to incorporate an Achaemenid symbol into my painting. So, I painted the image of a bust, colored it sapphire blue and navy blue, and used Iranian and Islamic patterns in the background. And for the 2020 contest, I painted a woman from whose interior different plants had grown. Anahita, the Iranian goddess of nature, had inspired me to paint that image. Anahita is the symbol of fertility, and I wanted my work to give a feeling of growth, a change of season and start again", she said.