FARHAD AHRARNIA
Artist's statement
The submitted works consist of a number of images from media and cyberspace which are digitally printed onto cotton aida and are subsequently embroidered upon by using colourful threads.
The images’ choice is referred to various aspects of global and contemporary Middle Eastern topics of concern and discourse. By means of embroidery and through the language of needlework ,these images are subjected to an intense degree of scrutiny, as an attempt to deconstruct and agitate layers of meanings, power politics and hidden ideologies embedded, invested and consequently projected onto them.
The artist selects found images and transfers them digitally in colour onto an embroiderer's foundation fabric, which forms a grid in which 18 thread loops per inch cross each other and form a basic raster (a scan pattern). The square micro-elements of digital picture production, the basic picture points called pixels, are normally invisible, but at times enlarged by the artist to provide an additional geometric layer on the squared-up fabric. These two systems of co-ordinates, of textile and digital origin, provide the underlying geometric structure of the work. The artist follows these geometric overlays by modulating visual intensities and determining image areas that he wishes to emphasize and enhance through embroidery.
By adding embroidery, the artist re-vitalises these images. For him stitching is an articulation of space and time, rather than just aesthetics. Covering small sections of the images with stitches, he creates fields of colour, sets accents and marks them to give a tactile presence.
In most of his works he endeavors to leave traces of his technique and working procedure clearly visible; threads cross the canvas and needles puncture its surface. Tense or loose threads in various colours represent a linear set of connections, turning a web of lines into graphic devices that add an abstract dimension to an otherwise representative context.
Embroidery gives material substance and texture to otherwise flat images. Ahrarnia's stitched surfaces invite and seduce us to look more closely at his work. Our gaze is transfixed by the minute fragments of his needlework. Ahrarnia's works, as gentle as they may appear, are in ideological terms acts of subversion, yet in personal terms they remain as acts of self-assertion.