looking at you looking AFSHIN PIRHASHEMI at me profile profile Who are the faces in Afshin Pirhashemi’s paintings? Are they tangled up in pleasure or in pain? Are their worlds monochrome or coloured? The answers are far from simple. Myrna Ayad meets the man behind the women in Tehran. T he three of us are veiled. In single file, we walk towards the gate, our skirts rustling gently against the white BMW 3-series parked outside. We already knew Afshin Pirhashemi has a fondness for the Bavarian-made machines through some of his artworks, which feature the BMW logo. “You can drive BMWs anywhere in the world,” he later says, “but in Iran they’re [considered] very cool because they’re three times the price.” The metal gate buzzes open and I catch a glimpse of a figure with long dark hair disappearing into the inner recesses of the apartment. We stride into the white-walled space, slowly shedding veils and jackets, to the blaring notes of Vivaldi and a pungent odour of cigarette smoke. The room is large and sparsely decorated, save for three white leather sofas on the left, a white table, a black cabinet and six paintings of women hung all around. None are grimacing, but they all look as though they are in pain, silently screaming; their eyes appear to hold grave, hurtful secrets, their torsos seemingly bound. Each one of us stands hushed and in awe before the women. The accuracy with which Pirhashemi had painted them, in strong, and at times fleeting, strokes of black and white – his painterly charac- teristic – furthered the ghost-like element in their execution. While I felt a sense of morbidity, it was hard to surmise if these women were in fact, dead or dying. Within this sanatorium-like atmosphere, Laurence Sterne’s quote came to mind – “Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.” Pirhashemi’s paintings, while potentially sinister, can also be interpreted through themes such as ecstasy, defiance and even fantasy. Aren’t pain and pleasure two sides of the same coin? Doesn’t Horace Mann’s quote hold true – “Every nerve that can thrill with pleasure, can also agonise with pain”? The seated, bound woman in Pirhashemi’s Untitled (2005) work might look coerced into her trapped Opening spread: (Detail) BMW Series # 7. position, but she is – boldly – staring right at me, leaving me wondering if she is the entrapper or the 2009. Oil on canvas. 100 x 200 cm. Image courtesy Bonhams. entrapped. She also wears a crown. In another Untitled (2008) work, only a woman’s eyes are unveiled This page: Untitled. 2005. Oil on canvas. – alluring, beckoning, even sexy. Indecipherable Farsi script runs along her forehead. 100 x 150 cm. Image courtesy the artist. 124 Facing page: Untitled. 2009. Oil on canvas. 100 x 100 cm. Private collection, Geneva. Image courtesy the artist. This page: (Detail) BMW Series #1. 2008. Oil on canvas. 100 x 100 cm. Private collection, London. Image courtesy the artist. 126 127 profile “I can’t work The Director’s Cut Our stillness is disrupted by a sudden drop in (over double its estimate), two veiled women, face each other and exude a sense of tranquillity outside Iran, Vivaldi’s volume. We turn to find Pirhashemi be- side the CD player on which sit five Vivaldi CDs. through their closed eyes, in contrast to a barking dog on the left hand corner. A sense of space is there is no He presses tissue against his right hand, through which a splotch of blood appears. “Sorry, I cut my- instantly evident, and intentional for that matter – the women’s calm closeness versus their dis- inspiration self,” he says, explaining his initial disappearance and I spot a ring on his fourth finger – a large tance from the dog’s aggression. “I had to disturb the painting’s serenity, the space between the whatsoever crystal ball clasped by a bird’s claws. “It’s a sorcery ring,” he smiles. In the seconds that we approach women,” explains Pirhashemi, “and only a bark- ing dog could do that.” He had started with the elsewhere. [If the sofas to begin the interview, I quickly rewind the lapsed 10 minutes – gate opens, man appears top, painting the bodies and their hair, with no plan in mind – not even the artwork’s size, which I left], it would and disappears, white room, Vivaldi, dark paint- ings of women, man reappears with bloodied eventually came out to 200 x 300 cm. Instead, he prefers “to let the artwork speak to me” and em- feel as though finger – and it feels like a scene from a Hitchcock movie. “My canvas is like a film, like a movie,” says braces his play-by-play inspiration. All Pirhashe- mi was keen on was how he could disrupt the I ceased to Pirhashemi, “I’m creating this person and she is like an actress, so she can take on all these sce- painting’s stillness – a cornerstone of his artistic practice and a “direct reflection of contemporary be an artist narios depending on my movie and my mood.” The ‘mood’ is central to Pirhashemi’s oeuvre; he Iranian society.” In May 2007, former US Secretary of State because it’s the admits to having fallen into an abyss, a dark and depressive time, despite the growing fame he has Condoleezza Rice opened Wishes and Dreams: Iran’s New Generation Emerges at the Meridian In- controversy achieved in recent years. This ‘fame’, he believes, “has changed a lot of people around me, although ternational Centre in Washington, DC. The travel- ling exhibition, organised in partnership with the that drives me.” I haven’t changed.” ‘They’ have changed, believes Pirhashemi, particularly after the April 2010 Dubai University of Tehran, brought works by 30 Con- temporary Iranian artists in an effort to further Christie’s auction when the proverbial straw that cultural relations between the USA and Iran. A broke the camel’s back was the sale of his 2009 picture of Pirhashemi and Rice at the show ap- Rapture triptych for $554,500. peared in an Iranian daily newspaper accompa- Iranian government officials have kept a nied by an article, which garnered Pirhashemi a watchful eye on Pirhashemi, occasionally repri- ‘slap on the wrist’ upon his return to Tehran. “I was manding him for his depictions of women and asked why I paint only in black and white and I dogs. “With this regime, Figurative painting is not said it’s a reflection of Iran,” he says, “I was making positively perceived and here I am also painting a statement.” And yet, with all its vices and ampli- dogs, which [in Islam] are considered ‘unclean’,” he fying levels of art censorship, Iran and its women says. In his six-panelled X Series, which sold at the are at the very core of Pirhashemi’s inspiration. Kodja Danand, Homage to Rumi. 2009. Oil April 2009 Dubai Christie’s auction for $122,500 “I can’t work outside Iran, there is no inspiration on canvas. 200 x 300 cm. Private collection, Dubai. Image courtesy the artist. 129 profile “I’ve always thought that an artist should paint his wife or his love.” whatsoever elsewhere,” he says adamantly, “[if I of them. In doing so, Pirhashemi poured his own left] it would feel as though I ceased to be an artist thoughts into their faces; thoughts which reflect- because it’s the controversy that drives me.” While ed the politics of his native Iran, female empow- he has painted Jesus, Rasputin and Rumi – “only erment and the social controversies which riddle because they are controversial figures within a contemporary Iranian society. The faces become religious context” – it is women which incessantly slightly altered and, coupled with Pirhashemi’s feed into the 35 year-old artist’s inspiration. mental projections, the portrait and its accompa- nying background takes on a plethora of possible interpretations. It is Pirhashemi’s own world of The Many Faces Of Eve make-believe, headlined by his belief: “looks can “So, who are these women?” I ask, not expecting be deceiving”. Once again, the director casts his to hear that “90 per cent of them are my wife.” ‘leading lady’ but the role she plays is one which Pirhashemi met – and was instantly smitten by – he designates. “I get my energy from women’s Fatima in 1996 at the vernissage of his solo show secrets, the lives they never want to disclose,” he in Tehran’s Bamdad Gallery. “In Iran, when you explains, “I don’t judge them but I just feel that really like a girl, you either marry her or leave it,” women have elements which give me energy.” he smiles, “so I married her.” The couple got mar- ried two years later and ventured into matrimo- nial “pressure and difficulty”, largely due to the A New Palette fact that they had “married young”. Pirhashemi’s Recently, Pirhashemi has incorporated colour choice to paint only his wife stemmed from his into his artworks – a direction which mirrors his childhood belief – “I’ve always thought that an current frame of mind. “I was in a very, very dark X-series. 2008. Oil and metallic paint on artist should paint his wife or his love” – and be- stage in my life [with the black-and-white paint- canvas. 200 x 300 cm. Private collection, the conversation open-ended – “it’s got many in- “stubborn and naughty” child, often compared him in an art school. He went on to achieve a Dubai. Courtesy Christie’s Dubai. cause Fatima hails from a “very religious family” ings], but my outlook on life has changed,” he terpretations; she could be a prisoner of her own unfavourably to his more studious brothers. He BA from Azad University in Tehran and among Pirhashemi’s paintings of her stuck to a “conserva- says, “I’m happier now and I never want to go veil; many things have happened, which is why changed schools because he refused to cut his the string of awards he has achieved is the Bei- tive” fashion, which still aggravated authorities, back to painting in black and white again. It gives there’s blood. When Iranians close their eyes, all hair, hated studying and spent his childhood jing International Art Biennial Award in 2004. His who taunted him with, “not only do you paint me strange emotions and it feels unfamiliar.” Fati- they see is chaos. It’s all controversy,” he adds. reading books – on psychology, Iranian poetry fascination with women stems from his youth, women, but you paint your own wife!” That, cou- ma still appears in his colour works, but he asserts Possible repercussions of such blatant artis- and history – which his father had stored in the as his father always held them in high esteem. pled with increased tensions on the marital front, that “the percentage will decrease over time”. tic interpretations of Iran’s political and social cli- young boy’s bedroom. Pirhashemi’s introduc- It was Boticelli’s women that furthered Pirhashe- led Pirhashemi to seek out other models. The Fatima stands in the centre of a three-panelled mate don’t worry Pirhashemi. He finds it absurd tion to Freud was “premature”, later developing mi’s admiration of the female form and psyche. women – be they friends or faces he had scoured artwork, Kodja Danand. Homage to Rumi. Behind that his own country, which twice awarded him into admiration, but the one constant was draw- “I think Boticelli and I think similarly about wom- the Internet and Facebook for – had to adhere to her, it seems as though the sun is shining, its rays at the Tehran Biennial, could possibly penalise ing. “I remember how, when I depicted my par- en,” he smiles, “and if I lived in his time, I would Pirhashemi’s aesthetic mandates: “dark hair, dark trickled with verses by Rumi. Her veil, splattered him for his artworks. “The prizes are what the ents in my drawings, people would recognise have painted like him.” As far as famous Bavarian- eyes, innocence and sex appeal.” with blood, is sewn vertically in thick stitches that country gave me!” he exclaims, “but the worst them instantly,” he says, “but I thought everyone made machines go, Pirhashemi affirms: “Boticelli In his attempt to offer them relative ano- look like an autopsy has been performed. “Yes, thing would be to be thrown in jail, which knew how to draw and it had never occurred would have driven one, for sure.” nymity, he studied their faces carefully, listened but she’s still conservative,” he smiles. We discuss if would mean I couldn’t paint.” Drawing had been to me that being an artist could be a full-time to them intently and absorbed their habits and Kodja Danand. Homage to Rumi is a metaphor for a childhood passion for him. The second of profession.” At 15, Pirhashemi’s father gave in to For more information visit mannerisms enough to construct his own vision Iranian women, but Pirhashemi prefers to leave three sons, Pirhashemi admits to having been a his son’s disinterest in academia and enrolled www.afshinpirhashemi.com 130 131
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