Today the Nowrouz celebrations start. Nowrouz is the Persian new year and it starts on the first day of spring. I made this card for the occasion.
Not mine I’m afraid but brilliant, and so good I had to post it again.
Fall 2011 Issue - volume 96
Ramin was born in Shiraz and moved to the UK at 13. Through painting he came to realize that no matter what medium his work is focused on protest based Art “where I continue to tell the story of those often forgotten. A kind of Art that sometimes mixes serious issues with some humour but often with tragedy”. See www.dagod.org/about
Rahavand is an Iranian exile magazine.
My Art work as Album cover
My painting has become an Album cover. It happened when a colleague of mine who happens to be musician wanted one of my paintings as an Album cover. Here it is:
http://www.reverbnation.com/store/view_item_album/artist_1037650?item_id=1573020
I-have-no-feelings
This is a triptych telling the story of a political prisoner who is incarcerated inside a small space. Constraint movement in a small space causes madness in some prisoners. He is interrogated and tortured. The white light torture or sensory deprivation torture creates disorientation hence the blurriness in the second panel in contrast to sharpness of the first panel. In the first panel the presence of bats symbolises madness and also the existence of a fundamentalist element that went unnoticed until the revolution. The third panel shows decomposing of blood into soil and a disintegration which bring more blood and taints a nation. Many are killed and buried in unmarked graves in this way.
The phrase “I have no feelings” was a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini. He was asked how he felt about going home after years of exile and he provided a response that became symbolic of his psychopathic cruelty towards his fellow Iranians. The phrase “I have no feelings” has been turned into semi-abstract Persian calligraphy, disguised, spread or sometimes visible in all three panels.
This is a work in a new school of work called DaGod. DaGod is derived from Dada but unlike Dada it is movement against the crimes of religious fundamentalism.
DaGod is my own invented Art school and there are only a few works in this style. The controversial nature of the work has resulted in one of my works from this school to be shown on CNN and VOA. The first panel has also become an Album cover of a South African band called Bipolar Rats. DaGod often carries dark artistic humour and elements of it are similar to religious iconography (in this case the golden sculpted frames which are part of the work).
Please note price is per painting rather than the 3 panels. Print of individual items is also available.
I took this picture of a mustard field on my regular commute to London. There was a long cycle lane along this field. It crossed many fields and went on for miles and miles.
I dreamt that one day I would take my daughter and go cycling there. Then a month later I fell ill and suspected that I might have had a mild heart attack. I ended up in the hospital across the field and there I dreamt of being able to go back on my regular train journey and be alive to maintain the livelihood of my family. Fortunately it was a false alarm but it did dawn on me that you can’t always leave things to future. A few month later I did take my daughter on that cycle trip. It meant a lot to me but my teenage daughter was rather indifferent about the whole experience. Perhaps when she reaches my age she would look back and then the trip would mean something to her. Come what may, it has been wonderful to be alive and cycle on that lane.
