Mehdi Ghadyanloo: Perspective

About

Perception

Mehdi Ghadyanloo

26 Feb 2015 to 23 Apr 2015

On 26th February 2015, Howard Griffin Gallery will present an  exhibition and installation by Mehdi Ghadyanloo. Entitled Perception, the exhibition will explore this concept on multiple levels, focusing on space and perspective as a means to understand both Ghadyanloo’s work and the unique sociopolitical context of his practice.

Mehdi Ghadyanloo is a visual artist from Tehran, Iran. Born in Karaj, Iran in 1981, Ghadyanloo worked as a farmer before moving to Tehran in 1999 to study Painting at the University of Tehran’s faculty of Fine Arts. After studying painting for three years, Ghadyanloo went on to study for an MA in Animation at Tarbiat Modares University. Combining these two disciplines with his own unique style, Ghadyanloo went on to become one of the most famous street artists in Iran, painting more than 100 wall murals in Tehran.

For Ghadyanloo, the purpose of street art is to ‘beautify’ his grey and polluted city. A growing megalopolis, Tehran is an architectural mishmash in which semi modern and classical buildings sit side by side, often faced with widely varying materials from concrete to aluminium. Many high-rises and office buildings in the city have only one facade, with the other three left blank and grey. Practical demands mean that windows are often only installed on one side of the building, creating the perfect environment for large scale inner city murals of the type Ghadyanloo specialises in. 

Using bright colours on a hyper-real scale, he creates escapist, surreal dreamscapes that form part of his own fictional endless story. His imagery portrays impossible scenes and gravity defying figures from radically altered perspectives. Through the use of optical illusion, Ghadyanloo bends reality, creating works that make people stop in their tracks. His work is greatly influenced by Surrealism and Symbolism, combined with Persian figures and Iranian architecture. Using dreamy and playful motifs, Ghadyanloo aims to create his own utopia on the walls of his city. When designing a wall, Ghadyanloo carefully studies the people, culture and background of each area. Each mural reflects its surroundings, manipulating everyday life to transform the visual landscape of contemporary Tehran. Foregoing political commentary, Ghadyanloo is more interested in communication, and the dreams and imagination that people all over the world share. 

For the past 8 years, Ghadyanloo has been  involved in the  Municipality of Tehran’s Beautification Scheme, a committee set up to help promote mural art in the city. Tehran is a city that has been politically and economically isolated by Western powers for decades and is largely closed to international visitors. Known primarily through the lens of war, sanctions and embargoes, most Westerners would assume that street art in Iran’s capital would be prohibited and artistic expression suppressed. Subverting this perception, Tehran’s Beautification Scheme has supported the painting of 800 murals across the city.

The exhibition will feature original works and a sculptural installation exploring the concept of space through geometry and perspectival illusion. As a mirror to this, Tehran as a space for public art will be analysed through an accompanying publication that will include essays and interviews by the curator and world leading scholars on Iranian art.