Born in 1980 in Tehran, Iran, Payam Mofidi is a painter, video artist and an animation filmmaker currently based in Montreal.

Mofidi began learning painting and drawing at an early age and later attended the painting workshops of Hannibal Alkhas, the well-known Iranian painter and educator while studying graphic design at the university. Being inspired by techniques of animation, character making and storytelling, he explored video art and experimental animation while studying animation in Paris and developed his own unique approach to art making by incorporating techniques used in video and animation making.

What are central to all of Payam Mofidi’s works are his unique lyrical aesthetic language and the epistemological expression he uses to narrate and create his works. In his works, he predominantly deals with paradoxical notions; agony and comfort, innocence and impurity, searching while being blindfolded, and in many cases he portrays his characters in situations they seem to trapped in loops which metaphorically signifies the social actuality of contemporary man and the global social order and control.

Payam Mofidi’s drawings and videos are both based on real scenography, captured in time through either staged photography or videography. Using same technique to transfer the photos or his selected video frames onto paper, he artistically manipulates his captured images with his sketches and creates his independent drawings out of the photos or turn the sketched frames back into video using animation techniques.

Payam received a BA in graphic design in 2005 from Azad University of Art and Architecture in Tehran and graduated with honors from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris in 2009. His works has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Iran and internationally, also as part of numerous festivals and events worldwide.