AFSHIN PIRHASHEMI
SEDUCTION
AFSHIN PIRHASHEMI
Ayyam Gallery London 10 April - 24 May 2014
Afshin Pirhashemi examines the complexities of life in modern day Iran through photorealist portraits that often bleed at their edges into expressionist compositions, becoming dramatic tableauxs. Pirhashemi is fascinated by the role of women in contemporary Iranian society and their relationships to the world around them. Tapping into the psychosocial dimensions of contemporary Iran, Pirhashemi explores manifestations of power as they appear or are negotiated through gendered bodies and spaces. Born in 1974 in Urmia, Afshin Pirhashemi now lives and works in Tehran. His works are housed in public and private collections throughout the Middle East and Europe and he is the recipient of awards from the 2003 Tehran 6th International Art Biennial, and the 2004 Beijing Art Biennial Award. Solo exhibitions include Ayyam Gallery, Dubai (2013); Homa art Gallery, Tehran (2009); Seyhoun Art Gallery, Tehran (2005); and Barg Gallery, Tehran (2005). Group exhibitions include In & Out, Milan (2009); Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran (2004, 2003).
Afshin Pirhashemi’s Seduction: From Monochromatic Lusciousness to the Power of Colour By Zarmina Rafi
Outfitted in blouses cut to cleavage-revealing lengths, at other times draped in flowing chadors, caught between modesty and a full expression of sexuality, these are the striking heroines of Iranian painter, Afshin Pirhashemi’s canvases. To stand in front of the physically imposing canvases is surely an experience but the artist’s insistence on drawing and redrawing a cast of female protagonists is worth exploring in itself. On the surface these figures are shown as repentful, treacherous, conflicted, and often capable of harm, but in the continued disavowal of such “wrong” women, the subjects in fact gain agency as they begin to loom large in the minds of viewers. In the artist’s recent colour works his heroines are mostly stripped of so-called “feminine” characteristics and begin to take on qualities of the supernatural and the theatrical. At no point in the series of monochromatic works are the women of Pirhashemi’s making free from sin or guilt. These are no doe-eyed ingenues possessing child-like beauty often associated with female portraiture. Rather the women are bold and confrontational full-lipped beauties, with highly defined cheekbones, contoured faces, dark hair, and dark eyes, appearing sometimes as lone subjects and at other times in clusters. In The First Timer (2012) a young woman is presented in three iterations of the same pose, with her hair in a tight bun and a firmly clasped hand across her torso, she appears apprehensive at first, hiding her face into the cowl neck of her dress, until a final and violent release is reached within the narrative of the painting. This release is symbolised by a thick grey smearing upon the canvas and placement of ithyphallic images on the far right side of the work. Self-assured women of the world, Pirhashemi’s figures are complicit in their fate as is depicted in the painting, God Bless (2012). The distraught beauty in the painting has perhaps been crying or is physically distressed, we see her pull her thick black hair back from her face revealing bare arms and a glimpse
of flesh under the arms. This one pose seems to encapsulate everything Pirhashemi attempts to communicate in his black and white works as he continues to explore the role of women in contemporary Iranian society: Desire me and yet you reject me. We are simultaneously hooked to the woman’s physical attractiveness but are repelled by her state of exhaustion, the weariness of facial expression, and the declarations of “No job, Can’t get sex” that accompany the painting. This work confirms that “ultimately the meaning of woman is sexual difference” which for a male viewer always creates a problematic viewing position. Approached from a Lacanian worldview this woman— and others like her in their physical difference from men—may be read as lack, symbolic of the threat of castration. It is also important to note that Pirhashemi’s women are not only “raw material for the active gaze of man” but are makers of meaning in their own right. In Revenge (2012), a woman bleeding from the nose points a gun at the viewer. Irrespective of what drove her to this point of violence, the female is also an actor, someone who has made a conscious decision to take up the weapon. In this act she changes from “bearer to maker of meaning.”
a turban-wearing female who holds a gun in one hand; a second female hides behind an ominous mask; while the third is involved in a dance of display and concealment as she too holds a mask up to her face. The three figures are reminiscent of the three witches in the opening scene of William Shakespeare’s 1606 play, Macbeth where “Fair is foul and foul is fair.” Throughout history, women have long been labelled temptresses, sorceresses, and witches, the association with witchcraft is often indicative of a society’s fear of unbridled sexuality, and the sheer power women possess as creators and procreators. The fourth and most powerful woman in this composition stands apart from the triad. Clad in a long black robe that reveals a “V” of the neckline she commands an eagle at her side. Although the woman’s face is scarred, her defiant pose suggests she has succeeded in taming the large bird, for now it rests upon the open palm of her hand. The message here is clear, in getting the eagle under control it is she who has become master.
The artist’s recent colour works depart from the overtly sexual, instead bringing to focus a new cast of characters. These women may be described as fierce, sword wielding, and eagle taming, poised to take on whatever may come their way. In the new works the artist injects tones of copper and chestnut into the hair of his heroines in contrast to the black in which they have often been cloaked. Red, which stands for lust, blood, violence, and vigour, now literally comes to the surface instead of relying on the viewer to imagine it. In Mothers (2014), Pirhashemi puts his audience face to face with a band of women who come together as if heralding a new world order, some obscuring their identity by wearing masks such as the one popularised in the 1996 Hollywood horror film, Scream while others hold sabres. The masked women hint that all is not as it seems and something is askew in the order of things. The sense of things being askew is further emphasised in Power (2014) which depicts a triad of women: the first of whom is
Text copyright the author and Ayyam Gallery, 2014.
God Bless 2012 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm
The First Timer 2012 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm
Repent 2012 Oil on canvas 150 x 200 cm
Revenge 2012 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm
I Am Lost in God 2012 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm
I Love NY 2012 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm
Untitled 2013 Oil on canvas 100 x 200 cm
Untitled 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm
Power 2013 Oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm
Mothers 2013 Oil on canvas 195 x 285 cm
Competition 2014 Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm
Ayyam Gallery Founded in Damascus in 2006, Ayyam Gallery is recognised as a leading cultural voice in the region, representing a roster of Middle Eastern artists with an international profile and museum presence. Spaces in Beirut, Dubai, Jeddah, and London have further succeeded in showcasing the work of Middle Eastern artists with the aim of educating a wider audience about the art of this significant region.
Ayyam Gallery, London 143 New Bond Street, 1st Floor, W1S 2TP London, United Kingdom T: +44 207 409 3568, F: +44 207 409 3162 london@ayyamgallery.com www.ayyamgallery.com