Event
Closing Reception of Pouya Afshar: A Return To The Flesh
16 Jul 2022
Regular hours
- Sat, 16 Jul
- 14:00 – 17:00
Free admission
Address
- 434 North La Cienega Blvd.
- West Hollywood
California - 90048
- United States
Travel Information
- La Cienega and Melrose
- Hollywood/Highland and Hollywood/Vine Stations
Concerned with transformation, the works in A Return to the Flesh are constantly in flux, their perspectives oscillating rapidly amongst simultaneous depictions of human anatomy, animals, landscapes, and abstract forms.
About
About the Exhibition + Artist
For Afshar, the process is just as important as the product, if not more so. Concerned with transformation, the works in A Return to the Flesh are constantly in flux, their perspectives oscillating rapidly amongst simultaneous depictions of human anatomy, animals, landscapes, and abstract forms. Drawing from the tradition of Persian miniatures in more ways than one, the works in this collection are free of any denotations that indicate a particular space or time, endowing them with a transcendental quality that allows viewers to focus on the aesthetic, societal, and existential concepts put forth by Afshar.
Like the artist’s previous exhibitions, A Return to the Flesh explores memory as well as the disintegration thereof, and similarly the ever changing nature of history itself. Comparing and intertwining the beliefs of those before him, his statement references Wisława Szymborska’s poem The Onion and Lucille Clifton’s poem 1994. To Afshar, artists are the record keepers of history, and these quotes serve as a small testament to that respect.
A Return to the Flesh examines the duality of body and mind, order and chaos— the cyclical, responsive relationship between motion and emotion. A key tenet of his animated work, the incessant presence of movement throughout his paintings and illustrations is representative of the reactive nature of the value systems produced by racially discriminatory structures.
