PALIMPSEST | Artist Darvish Fakhr's Solo Exhibition in London | September 4 - November 8th, 2014 | @edgeofarabia

MULLAH AGAINST PINK WALL 

EOA.PROJECTS is proud to present Darvish Fakhr’s debut solo exhibition in London, Palimpsest. Over the last three years Fakhr has produced an extraordinary collection of multi-layered, ruminative pieces in response to his recent trips to Iran. In a body of work including paintings, installation and the eponymous digital collage ‘Palimpsest’ (2014), Fakhr explores the relationship between shared memory and the passage of time, looking both to the past and the future. The historical patination implied by the artist’s chosen ground of Iranian public walls – sun-bleached, free-form noticeboards ordered only by time – is set off by the contemporary thread running through this collection.

On the surface, or else buried beneath multiple layers of paint, Fakhr presents brief, sometimes tantalizing apercus of recent Iranian history, each one suggestive of its relationship to the present. We see Iranian peep shows, utopian landscapes and studio portraits; fortune-telling birds, telephone numbers, stencilled graffiti slogans, obituaries and, central to this body of work, offering both a way in and a challenge, a family of mostly anonymous individuals gazing out at us and the world beyond. Women in sunglasses, chador and lipstick, a bearded and brown-robed mullah, a street vendor and a former Iranian Emperor, each rendered with a classical sensitivity which prioritizes mark-making and a direct communication of texture and surface. It is Fakhr’s handling of these influences which sets this collection apart, demonstrating his mercurial ability to combine a breadth of disparate elements into a coherent and mesmerising whole.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in 1969, Darvish Fakhr grew up in the U.S. before moving to Britain where his practice has been based for the last two decades. In 1997 he graduated from the Slade School of Fine Arts, London. In 2004 he won the BP Travel Award, through the National Portrait Gallery, which allowed him to visit his father’s home country of Iran and begin his depictions of Iranian culture. Since then, Fakhr has taken Iran as his principal subject and has been exhibiting in Tehran at the prestigious Aun Gallery. In 2008 he was asked by National Portrait Gallery to paint a portrait of the contemporary dancer Akram Khan; his nine-part panel painting now forms part of the NPG permanent exhibition. This is Fakhr’s debut solo exhibition in London.