Naeemeh Naeemaei's new exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art includes some paintings she created at her Eugene home. (Alex V. Cipolle)

In the fall of 2017, Naeemeh Naeemaei rolled up her massive paintings of Caspian tigers, Imperial eagles and Persian sturgeons, slipped them into tubes, tucked them in a suitcase and left Iran for the United States.

Less than two years later, the artist is making her U.S. debut at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. Running through Dec. 31, "Naeemeh Naeemaei: Dreams Before Extinction and Under the Earth, Over the Moon" features two series of paintings, one created in Iran from 2009 to 2012 and the other painted at her Eugene home in 2018 and 2019.

This is no small feat, considering that in January 2017 the Trump administration introduced Executive Order 13769, which has delayed or halted U.S. entry visas for citizens of nations linked to terrorism, including Iran. Naeemaei came to the U.S. as a dependent of her husband, also an Iranian citizen, who acquired a student visa after several setbacks.

“It was so difficult,” Naeemaei recalled. “Diplomacies affect cultures deeply, in this case by preventing cultural exchanges.”

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A painting of an Imperial eagle from Naeemeh Naeemaei's "Dreams Before Extinction" series. (Courtesy of Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art)

Naeemaei operates where art meets environmental activism. From her childhood, her parents, who still live in Iran, instilled in her an appreciation for the arts and nature.

Her paintings depict the endangered and vulnerable species that crisscross Iran — the hawksbill turtle, the Persian cheetah, a newt known as Kaiser’s spotted newt or the Luristan newt — and dismantle what she calls the artificial boundaries that set apart human and animal.

On large canvases, Naeemaei's bold use of light against dark backdrops, bursting with ruby reds, are often reminiscent of the realism of the Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio, all the while packed with Easter eggs for students of the environment, religion and culture.

For each animal she captures in oil and acrylic, Naeemaei traveled with her mother to the far corners of Iran to photograph the animal’s habitat and research the culture of the nearby people whose costumes and customs become part of the painting. And Naeemaei often appears in her work, as herself or a stand-in for humanity at large.

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Naeemeh Naeemaei, "Siberian Crane," 2011, acrylic and oil on canvas, 59-7/8 x 82-11/16 inches. (Courtesy of Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art)

“The reason that those animals are on the edge of extinction is usually related to humans, local people, or communities,” she said.

One work in “Dreams Before Extinction,” the 2011 piece “Siberian Crane,” pays homage to a beloved crane in Iran called Omid (Farsi for “hope”), which Naeemaei said is the last of a population that migrates each winter to the rice farms on the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea. In the painting, Naeemaei dons a white chador in reference to the region’s old way of dress, adding a red scarf to mimic the crane’s blazing beak, while holding a book above Omid’s head.

“There is a very traditional custom in Iran that when someone leaves the family for a long journey, they put the holy book of the Quran above the head of the traveler,” she explained. “It is ensuring that the person comes back safe.”

For her new series, “Under the Earth, Over the Moon,” Naeemaei takes inspiration from “Mina and the Leopard,” an Iranian folktale based on a true story from a century ago. Coming from the northern village of Kandolus, which neighbors the village where her father grew up, the story goes something like this: The voice of a young woman, Mina, attracts a leopard to the village; the two develop a friendship, but Mina’s male suitor becomes jealous, and shoots the leopard, killing him. Today, the Persian leopard population is decreasing because of human impacts on its habitat, Naeemaei explained.

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Naeemeh Naeemaei's “Auntie ‘Stay,’ Mother of Hunters,” is on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon.

The series will eventually include 15 paintings; three are on view, including a nocturnal triptych, which is the exhibition’s showstopper. “Auntie ‘Stay,’ Mother of Hunters” features a central canvas based on a photograph of Naeemaei’s father’s family 50 years past.

“It represents the early past when animals and humans were in a balance, when they knew how to live together better than now,” Naeemaei said. “It is full of colors, lights, and warmth.” She also depicts one of her great-aunts with the horns of a roe deer and with a fawn in her arms – a sly familial reference as her great-aunts’ sons would become hunters of the deer, whose population is declining.

To the left, Mina turns away from wildfire, representing the world today, as wildfires spread in the region, and other parts of the world due to climate change, Naeemaei explained.

To the right, an ailing leopard curls up on snow-covered earth, leaning into the warmth of the central canvas.

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“Naeemeh Naeemaei: Dreams Before Extinction and Under the Earth, Over the Moon”

When: On view, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday through Dec. 31; artist's talk, 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20.

Where: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 1430 Johnson Lane, Eugene.

Admission: $3-$5; free for ages 18 and younger and University of Oregon faculty, staff and students; "pay what you wish" 5-8 p.m. each Wednesday; free the first Friday of each month; jsma.uoregon.edu or 541-346-3027.

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