TehranBeyond The Line

The arrival of modernism in Iran was coincident with many cultural and political movements. Over the last few decades, art in Iran have witnessed a confluence of modernism and struggling for independency, removing cultural barriers, crossing the traditional belief, desiring for change, and revolution in hope for a better tomorrow.

The artist here demonstrates the moment in a narrative story. He emphasizes on interactions between the figures, at different age periods, by gesture and expression. He also depicts the story of his interaction with the society. Some of the stories told in his painting are rather straightforward, easily read by most viewers: simple pictures. Others convey content through more obscure symbols, using details freighted with personal, often cryptic meaning—complex images that perhaps reflect the complex circumstances. People inspire the figures he uses in his narrative art. He uses both identified and unidentified faces; among the figures one can recognizes faces of mothers in sorrow, children in desperate need, and victims of freedom.

Saeid Ravanbakhsh