A painter unveils the subliminal logic of power, pixel by pixel.
*Photo above: Taha Heydari, Cronus, 2016
June 22 to October 8, 2017
The paintings of Iranian-born, Baltimore-based emerging artist Taha Heydari are richly textured narrative surfaces that resemble digital tapestries. Heydari employs elaborate 'filters' of line drawing, computer-generated patterns, traditional Middle Eastern art motifs, and found photographic imagery culled from the Internet and the archives. Through a complex veil of information emerge views on the darkness of political authoritarianism.
In a series of new works made for this exhibition, we witness a hallucinatory landscape of covert government actions, political intrigue, and civilian life under arrest. These scenes are balanced by the artist's thrillingly fresh language of painting and his translation of glitch and pixel into painterly mark.
About the Artist
Taha Heydari (Born 1986, Tehran, Iran) received his MFA in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2016 and his BFA in painting at the Art University of Tehran in 2010. He has been included in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including in Tehran, Berlin, Kuwait, Dubai, London, Amsterdam and Baltimore. Heydari has recently had two solo gallery exhibitions, one at the Haines Gallery in San Francisco and the other at Ethan Cohen Fine Arts in New York City. Subliminal will be his first solo museum exhibition.
Taha Heydari:Subliminal is curated by Cora Fisher