Demons

This series draws on classical Iranian miniature painting, especially the visual language of the Shahnameh, the Mantiq al-Tayr, and the court paintings of Shah Tahmasp’s era. In those narratives, demons are always defeated — always dwarfed, hidden, or humiliated in the face of heroic human figures. I was drawn to these overlooked creatures: grotesque, expressive, often more visually compelling than the stiff central heroes. In Demons, I extract these marginal figures and translate them through my own pictorial language. I render them large and imposing, repositioning them at the center of compositions emptied of narrative context. They are no longer chased or crushed — they stand alone. Materially, the works stay in conversation with the originals: I use a hybrid of collage, print, and painting on cardboard, employing similar materials to those used in miniature manuscripts. But the method is intentionally rougher, more textured. The demonic figures are solid, fixed, and confrontational. Around them, by contrast, float looser, more playful elements — fragments of fantasy or thought. These lighter gestures are sketched, suggested, or barely formed, playing in the negative space that surrounds the figure’s mass. The effect is a tension between weight and air, between embodiment and imagination. There is no moral in these images. No hero, no enemy. Just presence and distortion. Stillness and movement. A question, not a story.

Works: 3