Paintings and photographs by Shahriar Mazandi

The Paintings

The cityscapes explode in pincushion fashion outwards from a central point – an “axis mundi” – with the viewer as an observer in flight above the scenes. They explore ontological issues and dimensionality. More on the paintings here.

The Photographs

Images of car culture from the 1990’s were widely syndicated by Katz Pictures/ Camera Press. The series has the working title “Modern Tribe” as it examines the tribal qualities of the various automotive subcultures in California with the car as a modern version of a tribal shield identifying the owner with the appropriate “tribe” as lowrider, drag racer, hot rodder, etc. Portfolio here.

Merging boundaries between fine art photography and conceptual art, the “Playing with Fire” series consists of images of flame that have been manipulated until they no longer resemble the original subject matter. Some might see skeletal shapes or zoomorphic forms, others, whatever their imagination leads them towards, for they are as Rorschach ink blot tests with the viewer as the constructor of their own reality.

These images began as garden bonfires 2009. By 2012 the process of combining six images began as seen here.

The fire images with altered colours are referred to as Series II or Playing with Colour. Here, here, here, and here.

Series III which has yet to be published takes on a cultural and geo-political context. These images form social commentaries on today and are entitled “Burning Words”; as in the impacts words have and how language can be employed to frame contemporary events in a particular context. Questions these works posit include – what is propaganda? What is news? … More to come later.

The exact same processes of computer manipulation – the “journey to alternate realms” – resulted in the Dungeness and Hastings portfolios. More on the photography page.