An oil painting collection by Iranian artist Vahid Chamaani is on display at Tehran’s Assar Art Gallery.
Exhibiting eight of his latest artworks from his one and only series ‘Amino Acids’ in the past decade, Chamaani once again raises his socio-cultural concerns, “from the past without arriving at the present, tradition versus modernity and more,” Honaronline reported.
Believing in the exquisite qualities of Persian painting in the Qajar era (1785-1925) and the subsequent “distasteful furtherance of the arts”, the artist has traveled back in time.
He also seeks to experience the gradual fulfillment of oil as a medium of painting that reached new heights during the early Qajar era, and take it a step further.
Inspired by Qajar paintings, the human figures and portraits are not intended to be realistic depictions, the artist said.”They are not icons of power, but they symbolize the people of my country.”
Human figures are visually and conceptually considered as icons of social suspension, oscillating between the past and present. The disturbed men, women and children, their scars, deep wounds and stitches and their dark and dull eyes, portray their unsteady, insecure and volatile lifestyle in a poetic manner.
“To me, the people I painted are real individuals whose inner feelings and deliberations have affected their appearance. Their looks signify their unease and inner anxiety derived from their cultural and social instability and disorientation.”
Chamaani has selected “a scientific approach to the matter as he finds it impossible to get a solid definition for it in the arts and humanities.” Therefore, he picked amino acid, as a simple organic compound from which protein and therefore living creatures are generated, to picture his own compound structures that could potentially mutate to shape different creatures.
The current event will be open to the public through January 8, 2016 at the gallery, located at No.16, Barforushan Alley, Iranshahr St., Karimkhan Zand Avenue.
Chamani, 31, has held seven solo exhibitions in Iran and the US, all titled ‘Amino Acids’. He is a graduate of Soureh University in Tehran and winner of several awards including the Art Bridge Program (2009) in Washington D.C., Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize (2009) in London, and the 7th Painting Biennale of Iran (2008) in Tehran.
