After twelve years in Los Angeles, where he completed his training at the California Institute of the Arts, Farhad Moshiri currently lives and works between Paris and Tehran.

Inspired by Pop Art, he has developed a remarkable hybrid visual language that draws simultaneously from both popular Iranian and Western cultures. He is also renowned for his ironic interpretations of the amalgamation of traditional Iranian forms and those of the consumerist and globalized popular cultures widespread across his country.

For the exhibition “Picnic”, Farhad Moshiri continues to draw upon the technique of embroidery for its ornamental qualities. Divided into two series, the exhibition displays seven new canvases as well as the impressive knives installation “Comfort”.

All the works in the show are rich with symbolic references that mirror ambiguities and paradoxes in Moshiri’s work. For the show, Moshiri has distanced his work from pop culture, while continuing to use monochromatic bright colors. Indeed in the first room the works, both meticulous and detailed drawings, show scenes of common life, innocent activities, bucolic and dreamlike moments that can all be preludes to a tale.

In the second room the “Streetfighter” series is displayed, portraying a powerful duality; two men embracing one another in a movement both aggressive and erotic. “Comfort”, an installation composed of knives; objects that by their very nature, present a poignant association with violence, that couldn’t be farther removed from the grace that distinguishes embroidery. The juxtaposition of contrasting elements in the medium and the title “Comfort” - defined as a condition or feeling of pleasurable ease, well being, and contentment - is intrinsic to this new work, created specifically for the show.

Image: © Farhad Moshiri, Courtesy of Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong & Paris