A Selection of Paintings by Khosrow Hassanzadeh

Born to an Azerbaijani family in 1963 in Tehran , Khosrow Hassanzadeh spent most of his childhood in museums and cinemas - a refuge from the busy streets of Tehran , where he sold bananas to tourists near the National Museum of Iran. As a teenager he volunteered to fight on the Iran-Iraq front, not expecting that he would stay as a recruit for several years. When he came back from war, having escaped death, he chose a discipline that he always dreamt about: painting and poetry.

Like the children of martyrs and other war heroes, he was allowed to further his studies. He enrolled at the art faculty of Tehran , but two years later he abandons the idea of academic training in arts, and eventually studied Persian literature at the Azad University . Earning a living by working as a fruit seller, he painted at night, in his fruit stand after closing time on large rolls of wrapping paper. Here on his fruit stall, he met his mentor and art teacher Aydeen Agadshlou, a painter and former artistic advisor to Queen Farah, patroness of the Arts. Under his guidance, Hassanzadeh's love of paintings was transformed into an obsession, a true direction, a vector of life.

His colorful paintings-drawings, on paper used to wrap fruit are mostly figurative, depiction of saint-like figures, musicians, dancers, wrestlers, mother, wife, children or self-portraits with personal visual diaries or poetry covering the images. Mysterious numbers, codes, symbols and collages of wall paper are added to these compositions of patch-worked paintings.

Khosrow started exhibiting in 1991 at Jamshidieh gallery in Tehran , then at other Tehran galleries: Barg Gallery in 1994, Bokhara gallery in 1995, Seyhoon Gallery in 2000 and 2002 and most recently at Silkroad gallery. He has worked with a group of dynamic artists on several multi-media conceptual installation projects, The Art of Demolition, Experiment 98, and Children of the Dark City 2000. His career started to accelerate fastly in London with his solo show at the Diaroma Art, followed by Iranian Contemporary Art at the Barbican Center in spring 2001. Since then, Hassanzadeh has exhibited worldwide in leading art galleries and his works adorn the walls of several public collections such as the British Museum , London , The World Bank in Washington DC and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

His interesting personality and talent also made him the focus of BBC2's Correspondent program, of several documentaries by Maziar Bahar, of ARTE the cultural French television and of FOCUS on Swiss TV.

The artworks on show are from the series ASHURA, PAHLAVANS and CHADORS.

ASHURA collection reflects the traditions of the bloody Shiite religious ceremony marking the death in battle in 680 of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed . The paintings were created with a silk screen printing technique and use oriental style, large over 2 meters high vertically hanging Kraft paper monotypes.

PAHLAVAN works are a series of massive silk screen prints on paper of century-old photographs showing these Pahlavans naked from the waist up, their bodies' strong and supple, wrestling and posing. These noble wrestlers were very popular characters in Iranian society, which believes in physical strength but a humble mind.

The Pop Art style in the series CHADORS reflects the liberal and rebel mind of the artist. It also reveals cultural movements in Tehran such as saqqakhaneh (spiritual pop art) where artists adapted popular imagery to comment on contemporary Iran. Although Khosrow is branded a political painter (especially for his series TERRORISTS, PROSTITUTES, DO I HAVE TO SIGN?), the artist claims to be inspired by ordinary people, just like him. Mostly revolving around women, the paintings represent them at the edge of real world and imaginary world, revealing more facets than just the veil.

Hassanzadeh who is inspired by both his surroundings and by real events highlights through his works the diversity, complexity and sophistication of the modern Iranian art scene and society. Sometimes satirical, sometimes mystical - the works of Khosrow Hassanzadeh are always powerful and striking.

In September 2006, the oeuvre of Khosrow Hassanzadeh will be on view at the KIT Tropen Musuem in Amsterdam . It is great pleasure and honor to welcome Khosrow in Dubai.

A Selection of Paintings by Khosrow Hassanzadeh