Breakthrough

Artist Statement

My creatures are taken out from the context they belong, and are trapped inside an empty cage bounded by the limiting lines; This generally refers to the situation of the mankind in the society -the norms have been made to helps us feel secure but they transform us inevitably; we have to accept odd -and sometimes grotesque- behaviors which are not ours and we suddenly happen to be a collage of an odd being. The metamorphosis here is tried to be shown through the textures which represent the emotional experiences of the subjects. I started this series of work with paintings and drawings of dogs and they have been chosen because they seemed as the most repressed creatures to me. Then during the process another parts of other animals happened to be added to these bodies. Sometimes the inner pressure deformed the frame of works and other times the lines transformed to the most invisible ones; the frame of the paper itself… that series of works are called Normophoia (2018 – 2020). As my graduation degree was related to chemistry, I often use the chemical reactions between the unmixable substances to create the textures of the figures. And that has become my personal technique during my career. And as the reaction is happening by its own and I can only direct it somehow the result can’t be repeated, so every work is going to be unique. Ancient Iranian paintings and its odd creatures have been inspired me, such as those of Mohammad Siah- Qalam (15th century) or the creatures which can be found in Medieval paintings. I have been studying on the Goul/ Div motif in Iranian paintings recently and that’s how the Demons series have been created.

There began the Demon series of works (2022) began with a study on Iranian old paintings and is inspired from them. During the process, I found myself drawn to the diversity of the motif along the history; It was really interesting that according to political and social life of Iranians, the Image of Ghoul/ D’iv has been changed a lot. I was following the motif in oriental art history and Medieval paintings and started the series with the figures I chose from Shah Tahmasp Shah-Nameh and Mantegh O’Teyr. I focused on a specific figure which had been a little part of a Miniature and made it very big as a size we expect a Ghoul should be. In the Persian ancient paintings, the figures of evil was always surrounded by Goodness and there’s always a hero who had to kill them like Jamshid or Tahmores. But here the positive figure has been eliminated and we will focus the specifications of the bad. So I bring the figures into a new concept, trying to have a conceptual reading of it through contemporary issues and today’s social life. I also used the same material as in the old paintings, like Gold or cooper colorants and ink.

After that I became engaged in a comic strips artist book of my works, which some pages are published (2023) The main idea was to use the old comic strips frame work as a whole drawing; where every frame is a work of art without a story and is related to the other ones just through the visual connection and not by a story. So the audience can build her/his story of it for her/himself. The atmosphere was about night life in Tehran and the hidden things that happens despite the limitations we have. And after that I’m working on a series of mixed media works mostly printed as a mono print and with the same technique and motifs I had. Through the process the figures of women raised against that disfigured animals and demons and I had a series works of women and then the human figure (which I strongly believe had to do with social and political situation in my country, as my work was always to the society I was in. there are some social and political changes here in Iran as you probably already know.