The fourth and final painting in the series “Between Roots and Horizons”, which parallels the stages of cell division with the stages of my migration journey.
This painting reflects telophase — the stage when division nears completion, yet the two cells remain briefly connected, still shaped by one another. Two worlds now exist apart, but the membrane between them has not fully closed.
One cell holds Iran — the root, the soul, the part of me that never left. Circular forms and Persian geometry echo through the background like memories caught in repetition, carrying both beauty and unresolved grief. Resting above them are fractured turquoise stones — ancient, grounded in Persian culture, and physically embedded into the painting — their weight as real as the sorrow they carry.
The other holds my present life abroad: time moving forward, identity slowly reassembling.  Fragments of mirror gather toward the shape of a Persian motif, reaching for form, reaching for self — but struggling, interrupted, incomplete.
This painting was finished during a period of war and massacre in Iran, and that weight lives within it. The turquoise stones and shattered mirrors carry the same truth: what happens there lands here. Telophase suggests completion. But some divisions never fully close.

Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 82 x 4 cm (16 × 32 × 1.5 in, approx.). Varnished with Golden MSA Satin Varnish (UV-protective).