The "Smiling predictor" exhibition presents an unprecedented set of acrylic paintings on paper and on canvas of all formats by this young Iranian artist of 34 years. An ode to vital energy and the appetite for life. A testimony also of the culture of which he is the guardian through the women of his lineage; her great, great grandmother was part of the Masonic lodge of the Awakening 100 years ago in Iran and she imparted her knowledge of Sufism and mysticism to her daughters, from generation to generation until today. He is thus the first man in the family to hold this knowledge and to reveal it implicitly at the heart of his painting. It allows us to discover them on the occasion of this exhibition.
Mohammad Ariyaei's works are incandescent. At the heart of an uninhibited, humorous and crazy figuration, it is located at the crossroads of the East, Africa and the West. He mixes poetry and Persian literature as well as human beings, djins and animals, and personally summons Persian philosophers and poets such as Saadi, Roudaki, Ferdowsi, Khaghani, Hafez and the mystic Shams to the same table. , beyond time and space, as if to reconcile the spirit of creation and take support and advice from its illustrious predecessors.
The surface of the work is rhythmic, saturated with signs and bubbling with cross-references between cultures and the visual, poetic, literary and musical arts. The vertical composition of certain works is reminiscent of Japanese prints and in particular of Japanese theater populated by funny, outraged and tragic characters. Mohammad Ariyaei gives us a thundering, frenetic art both in the graphics mixing text and image and in the energetic, intense, fresh and luminous color. Indeed, emotion is born from pure color, singing through reds, blues, yellows and oranges applied with freedom and casualness. The freedom of the gesture is perceived in the supple, slender features and the wild hair of the characters. The Arabic writings fly from all sides and participate in the overexcited graphic composition of the whole. Mohammad Ariyaei's work is a lively score composed of a farandole of exuberant colors, skilfully orchestrated shapes and signs. The work is organically alive, noisy, as if lit from within by color.
This extrovert art presents a powerfully mastered chaos, on the verge of explosion, just like its creator, a being who is at once jovial, lucid and serious with regard to the history of his country. Like a cry for survival, he depicts the dramas and lyrical flights of human history, his desires, his questions, his wanderings, his absurdity and his powerlessness as an observer of his contemporaries. This scathing statement is nevertheless tinged with laughter and lightness to better invite the viewer to rethink the world and take a distanced look at love, desire, betrayal, war and human injustice.
“Here, the barbaric or savage ceremonies of New Guinea take on the air of Rio carnival.
Here the vitality bursts and the colors dance the jig while thundering.
A charivari of African masks, children's drawings and neon colors invades the meticulously meshed backdrops with volcanic overflows.
It seems that within a kindergarten class, merry feathered wizards have joined together to cover the canvas or the paper with totemic figures strewn with the most inventively unexpected graffiti, in a creative frenzy so bubbling that the anarchy that threat recovers as if in spite of itself a semblance of balance.
The graphic design performs an enveloping and virtuoso dance that passes from the most wisely academic exercise to the most exuberant and Dionysian lyrical expressionism.
It's flamboyant, paroxysmal and wonderfully joyful.
Should we detect here any influence of the spirit of "outsider art", today widespread worldwide?
Perhaps, but then it is undeniable that the personal temperament of Mohammad ARIYAEI carries everything and no longer owes anything to anyone. »
Xavier Office, November 2021
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