PEJMAN EBADI
Pejman Ebadi was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1982, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war. At age two years old, his family leaves their war stricken homeland to find refuge in France. Pejman’s father, a poet and amateur painter, recognizes his son’s precocious gift – at age four – for painting and drawing, and he is encouraged to express himself freely without any particular guidance. While Pejman is neither tutored in nor receives a formal art education, his father takes him to major art exhibitions in Paris and provides him with books of paintings by major artists of the 20th century. Since age four, Pejman has never ceased to paint … creating a rich, diverse and intense body of work spanning over two decades and covering different styles and periods. Pejman’s first showed as part of a collective exhibition in Paris in 1988. His first solo show was in Les Lilas, outside Paris, in 1991. And the following year he is featured in solo shows in Metz, Berlin and Solothurn. Pejman’s work has garnered him over fifty solo and over twenty group shows. Three monographs retrace his entire production until 2007. Pejman has enjoyed venues in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Metz, Lyon, Montreal, Toronto, Bern, Zurich, Copenhagen, Moscow and Los Angeles. In 2000, Metz's Arsenal offers him his first retrospective where 150 works covering fifteen years of work are shown in a public institution. From a very early age Pejman has travelled the world extensively. In particular, two trips to the Amazone region in 1991 and the following year have left strong and lasting impressions on him. For the past six years, he has been spent half the year in Brazil, Thailand and India and the other half in Nice, the French Riviera, where he has a studio.
PEJMAN EBADI: Artist Statement Painting is a life long passion for me. I held a paint brush in my hand before I could read or write. Painting is the most natural way for me to express myself; it is something very much innate in me. I don’t need to be in a special mood or state of mind to be inspired, in order to create. I have lacked a lot of things but have never had to look for inspiration. I don’t even know what it really means to be inspired; whenever I feel like it, which is quite often, I just get up and go to the studio to work. The feeling of sterility is something unknown to me. Painting transposes me immediately to a world of great intimacy, familiarity; it is like returning to my natural state, kind of returning home. My paintings are an incessant exploration of my subconscious and all things mysterious and unknown to me within and without. Painting allows me to fathom the depths of my psyche. It is also a place of healing for me, and it is here that I come close to a meditative state; by this I mean a state of total absorption, where I am totally integrated with the process that is unfolding in front of me. Creating in this sense means revealing and encountering the essence of my own being, my being and in a larger sense, all beings. I never know beforehand what I am going to paint. Spontaneously I project myself onto the canvas without any prior visualization. It’s the force of the blank surface that captivates and draws me in. As the work progresses, forms and colours begin to take shape as if slowly emerging from primordial chaos. Compositions and forms begin to unfold; it’s the force of the unknown, the energy flow of the subconscious that manifesting itself through the creative act guides me through the work. It’s as if, mesmerized by the invisible, its echoes guide my steps. Here we are talking of something very different from an installation; rather an un-installation. I don’t oppose the visceral element to the cerebral one, it’s just that in my work it is the irruption of the former that gives the impetus to the elaboration of the later; there is a thinking process involved in the act of creating, but it not one born out of conceptual reasoning and ideations. It’s always difficult for me to express my paintings through words; for me creating comes closer to something that I would describe as a shamanistic voyage. Words fail to capture the essence of the world of spirits. The same as with my painting; its language belongs to another world, rather, to the other world; the world of the unknown and the unseen – that which the visible is merely a mirror of. In a deeper sense, I paint to allow my soul to liberate itself.
Dust Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 160 cm, 2010
Dust And Mirrors Acrylic on canvas, 75 x 95 cm, 2008
The Big Bang Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 2012
Boiling Blood Acrylic on wood, 100 x 80 cm, 2011
Brainstorm Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2010
Man Down Acrylic on canvas, 2008
The Shadow Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 150 cm, 2008
Creation Of The Human Spicies Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 cm, 2013
Essence Of Purity Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 90 cm, 2010
Journey Of The Soul Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, 2013
Clown Down Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 150 cm, 2009
Day Of Fire Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 150 cm, 2009
The Arrival Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, 2008
Black Days White Nights Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 100 cm, 2012
Mars On Fire Acrylic and collage on canvas, 125 x 125 cm, 2006
The Path Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 130 cm, 2010
Eden Acrylic on canvas, 90 x 60 cm, 2010
Crepuscular Soul Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 130 cm, 2010
Noor Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, 2013
Previous Life (triptych) Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 120 cm, 2013
The Blue Dream Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 180 cm, 2009
Neverending Summer Acrylic on canvas, 75 x 75 cm, 2011
Yin Yang Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 100, 2008
The Mind Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 200 cm, 2008
Landscape Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 cm, 2013
Vertigo Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 130 cm, 2012
The Foundation Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 150 cm, 2010
Spiral Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 180 cm, 2011
Who Am I? Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 120 cm, 2013
Innersoul Acrylic on canvas, 130 x 150 cm, 2011
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