Afshin Pirhashemi (Iranian, b. 1974)

Afshin Pirhashemi's paintings explore the complexities of life in today's Iran through his unique combination of carefully controlled photo-realistic depictions of Iranian figures and gothic fantasy. The almost exclusive use of black and white seen in his earlier paintings, has since been tempered with restrained use of colour. His arrangement of figures against a plain white ground both enhances their trompe l'oeil character and gives them a sense both of monumentality and of timelessness. The lack of extraneous detail, combined with keenly observed features on the figures concentrates attention soley on the protagonists and the relationships between them.