Afarin Sajedi

Afarin Sajedi's is an Iranian artist. Her portraits wouldn't be considered beautiful in the conventional sense, they are intriguing, and evoke thoughts of science fiction much like H R Geiger. I personally love Sajedi's style, the bulging eyes, the red lips, the way the portraits stare at the viewer. Her work that interest me the most are the portraits that were featured in the Dorothy Circus gallery in Rome in Sajedi’s first major solo running from April 16th, titled “Illusion.” These portraits create an uncomfortable feeling because of the objects entwined between the background and actual subject in the paintings.

The bruised quality of the skin and the lips add again to the notion of this uncomfortableness. This specific piece called "Deep" adds the idea of suffocation, asphyxiation, and again this science fiction undertone to her work. Caro, writing fro the Contemporary Art Magazine Hi-Fructose, says "In painting female subjects, Sajedi’s work is often viewed as feminist, however it is the woman’s emotions that take center stage. " In my own work I have tried to explore the idea of woman's emotions, my own emotions through self portraiture. I think this is why I am mostly intrigued by Sajedi's work, because she brings the woman and the woman's feelings to the forefront of her work. Not that I am greatly interested in femenism but I am interedted in the fact that it is mainly, in previous contemorary portraiture that I have looked at (such as Freud), men paint women. This notion most famously originating from the painting of Venus and the Odalisques.