The Mughal miniatures’ rambunctious journey into the heart of contemporary aesthetics initiated a new era of art making in Pakistan in the late 1990s. Invigorated with audacious reinventions it exists today as a contemporary art staple and still continues to moult and mutate to grand effect.

But what of miniature art elsewhere? The Persian miniature predates the Mughal mannerism and had a heyday spread well over three to four centuries. How has it translated itself into the 21st century?

A current show, ‘New perspectives in contemporary miniature’, at Galerie Kashya Hildebrandin Zurich, Switzerland, was a fair sampling of the Persian miniatures’ contemporary spirit. Centralising on four artists — Amir Farhad, Babak Kazemi, Farah Ossouli and Soody Sharifi — the artworks, suspended between fiction and reality, not only reference the traditional models pictorially, but also elaborate on them theoretically. Each artist strove to define symbolically the notion of tradition in relation to which, or against which, the modern experience is presented.

The travails of star-crossed lovers Shirin-Farhad on Bisitun Mountain were given a witty makeover by Babek Kazemi in his series, ‘Exit of Shirin Farhad’. Replacing Shirin’s horse with a bicycle, he concocted humorous enactments portraying his modern interpretation of the story and its contemporary relevance. Unlike the traditional painted representations of an idealised couple alone in the mountain wilderness, Kazemi uses photography, depicting contemporary couples but posing them like figures in traditional miniature paintings. The emblematic Persian carpet is well utilised as a cultural marker and as a design and compositional element. Unlike traditional representations, Kazemi’s lovers never gaze at each other or even in the direction of their journey, thus signifying Kazemi’s sense of the impossibility of love.

Fidelity to the miniature mannerism, yet aspiring for a contemporary outlook, Farah Ossouli manages an enchanting blend of both in her figurative renditions of women in quaint poetic postures. Concentrating on soft hued foliate and floral pattern rendered in a fine linear technique, she captures the delicacy and intricate beauty of the traditional miniature. But there is another message veiled in the borders framing the painting. Margin and boundary patterns usually in arabesque or calligraphic distinctions are a significant feature of the conventional miniature and Ossouli subverts this tradition by investing her frames with repeats of dagger, missile and gun images to create a precarious balance of good and evil. The vibrant ‘Hafiz’ series is yet another manifestation her ability to manipulate colour, pattern and design into novel modulations.

Ossouli, considered the grande dame of contemporary Persian art, was one of the first artists to appropriate miniature painting as an authentic, personal and contemporary artistic practice for portraying women’s lives. She occupies a prominent position as an artist in Iran not only because of her unique artistic style and prodigious oeuvres but also because of her active involvement in Iranian contemporary art.

Implanting traditional miniature figures into historical or urban architectural locations in Iran, Soody Sharifi dismantles time zones to restage new encounters relating to present concerns. Likewise she inverts the orthodox miniature formats by inserting modern figurations into them to interrogate new paradoxes and contradictions. Titled, ‘The desert beyond the city belongs to me’, her maxitures series employs skilful use of photographic collage to create new stories that depict everyday Iranian life and highlight the conflict between the old and the new values.

A heady mix of graphic sign language, vibrant photographic images and bold garish painterly treatments characterise the art of Amir Farhad. The mixed media works are combined with texts that reference poetry and calligraphy. Using the beaded chilman or veiled / screened effect, he creates an ambiguous amalgam of several messages that address a plethora of social and political issues and yet retain an old-world aura of romantic poetry.

For audiences attuned to the local brand of miniature art, this collection shown by Galerie Kashya Hildebrand makes for pleasant viewing. It is conceptually engaging, has its fair share of cheeky humour and is diverse in approach and style.