PAYAM MOFIDI

Cohesive Disorder
12 September -3 October, 2014

Assar Art Gallery presents Cohesive Disorder, an exhibition of drawings and a video installation by Payam Mofidi.

In his second solo show with the gallery, the artist debuts his latest series in his hometown, Tehran, before presenting it in FNC (Festival du Nouveau Cinema de Montreal) in October 2014.

A metaphoric narrative on present human conditions viewed from an ontological and social perspective, the series comprises six drawings and three video animations. Narrated in a lyrical aesthetic language, all three parts of the video-installation share a visual and epistemological expression. The paradoxical plot – agony and comfort (Cohesive Disorder1), innocence and impurity (Cohesive Disorder 2) and searching while blindfolded (Cohesive Disorder 3) – as well as the loop in which the characters seem to be trapped, metaphorically signify the social actuality of contemporary man. The hands as an invisible controlling power with the napkin as a healing icon or an instrumental tool play key motifs in all three parts of the trilogy, poetically referring to the global social order in which the very production of people, their bodies and even modes of subjectivity undergo a constant monitoring 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.

Born in 1980 in Tehran, Iran, Payam Mofidi has participated in many international group exhibitions and festivals and received several grants. Before moving to Montreal, Canada, where he currently lives and works, he received his Master’s degree in Animation from L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratif in Paris and his BA in Graphic Design from Azad University in Tehran.