Tehran-born, London-based Reza Aramesh describes his choice of subject matter as “necessary for the moment we are in.” Neither protest not political crusade, his figures of anonymous men explore violence in its most banal and insidious forms. Often blindfolded or bagged—their poses adapted from news images—they stand and kneel under the weight of their trauma. And yet there is defiance: rather than focusing on acts of violence in themselves, Aramesh contemplates the power dynamics behind them, and means of resistance.
Carved in limewood and marble, or stitched in fabric, Aramesh’s works are a subtle attempt at understanding power imbalances, grafting together contemporary models, media imagery, and the visual tradition of Western religious art. Directing us toward a critical understanding and an aesthetic of abuse that breaks through the too-familiar noise of the 24-hour news cycle, he reveals the body as a site of power and strength. He returns time and again to the theater of conflict, elevating the unseen, aestheticizing the brutal, and granting dignity to the dispossessed. Like modern-day saints, his nameless figures manifest an enduring beauty that captures (in equal measure) what is most abhorrent and admirable in human nature. Purged of explicit context and interpretation, they embody resilience in material form, evoking a haunting and heavy silence that implicates us all.
Rajesh Punj: Your sculpted figures have their origins in images sourced from world news. Where do you start when you begin a work? And have you been collecting images for a long time?
Reza Aramesh: I begin by going through a series of folders that I have in the studio, which illustrate the source material and the making of different sculptures as bodies of work. I have the greater part of my material on hard drives—image banks that I’ve been compiling for many years, which contain images from around the world since the 1960s and the Vietnam War. . .
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