Backsplash

My paintings are rich with Persian art influences: Iran's ceramic traditions and its patterned, jewel-like art. But I follow my own personal vocabulary of images. I use pattern expressively, to evoke circumstances that are out of control. Cartoonish, art brut aspects of my work stand in opposition to its complex, jewel-like qualities. Through a visual tension of opposites, I found a language for the painful contradiction between Iran's reputation as brutal menace, and its exquisite contributions to world culture.

Backsplash features a fantastical, melting cityscape that resembles a hybrid of Iran's ornate mosques and a power plant. This meltdown satirizes the Iranian regime's flamboyant failure on the world stage. Cartoonishly spreading towards a miniature Manhattan, it also satirizes Islamophobia and fears of a nuclear Iran. The green counter-wave, brimming with defiant faces and limbs, is a metaphor for the imperiled protestors against Iran's theocratic regime. Backsplash is an expressive re-telling of a geo- political mess, mixed with angst, critique, and humor.

Backsplash is in the collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT.