Layer upon layer of lives lived held in fragments of paper attached to a wall. Artist Darvish Fakhr was moved by the obituary notices that he saw posted up in villages, towns and cities during his visits to Iran. New notices took the place of those faded by rain and torn by the wind, but beneath the new the old remained as a testimony and tribute to the great tide of human experience that shapes each generation.

This idea of layers of time takes physical shape in his latest collection of paintings inspired by his journey through the country where he observed: “The walls are always changing — that was my sense when I visited Iran — this reverence for pattern and layering. Not just in the mosaics and the carpets, but also in the people. This idea of believing in generations overlapping each other. That’s very different from the United States — where it’s more about the pioneer setting out as a maverick. So that was new to me and exciting and comforting.”

The rich and ancient culture of Iran came as a revelation to him as he grew up in the US after his father emigrated; he only came to discover that part of his heritage when he joined his father on a trip back to the homeland.

He explained: “Isfahan is the birth place of my father. He wanted to take me back to show me his country. I didn’t know much about it and I was curious.”

He found it an emotional and life-changing experience. “This journey was hugely important — it changed everything for me. It gave me a subject matter and a link to a part of myself that I didn’t know existed before,” he said.

“It was a real treat — like this precious thing I have been given. There’s a very hospitable nature that Iranian people have and of course once they discovered that I have an Iranian name and an Iranian father it was as though I was their long lost son. That was an amazing thing for me to feel a sense of belonging in a place that I had never even spent any time in.”

The journey took him to Mashhad, Rasht, Tehran, Sanandaj, Bandar Abbas, Kish and Bam before the earthquake. He has vivid memories of Bam: “I remember walking through there was like drifting through a giant sand castle — I saw really special things that most people, including most Iranians, do not get to see.”

All through the journey he was sketching and absorbing scenes that caught his eye. The resulting paintings are resonant with atmosphere, mystery and tension. There is beauty, sadness, joy in the everyday, awareness of the spiritual and consciousness of the impact of the weight of history, both ancient and recent, on each and every individual.

A sad and unexpected event played a part in how Fakhr works today. Two years ago his studio in Brighton on the South coast of England, where he has worked and lived for the past two decades, was accidently set on fire by a homeless drug addict who had broken into the premises and lit a fire to keep warm. Tragically, he died in the blaze. Some paintings were lost and some badly damaged or discoloured by smoke and heat.

The impact of this fire made Fakhr realise that he had been shutting himself away; his canvases had been pristine landscapes unpopulated by people. Now in their damaged condition he resolved not to discard them but to embrace them and build on them: and so these paintings are thick with images — some painted over, some half glimpsed, some just a shadow or a faint memory, but all retained in layers of experience and time. The name he gives to the series of paintings is ‘Palimpsest’, defined as something that has changed over time and shows evidence of that change.

His portraits of Iranian women have a classical quality, but somehow also capture how a young, modern woman finds her place in today’s Iran, defining her individuality within the parameters of diktats governing dress and behaviour.

He has a great skill in capturing every day scenes such as his painting of two middle-aged women sitting at a bus stop. Scrawled on a wall behind the resting pair are the words: “Heaven lies at the feet of mothers.”

He encourages people to touch the paintings — he is not concerned if a little bit of paint flakes off. “Don’t worry about scraping off a layer because there is so much underneath — it would just become part of that change,” he said.

Fakhr is now ready to move on to a new project, but for the moment he is cleaning his studio and allowing himself some breathing space. “It’s the first time I am doing that — I usually just swing from one idea to the next as a way of winding myself up and knowing which direction to march in. I’m making a conscious effort not to do that. I’ll go back to Iran maybe at Christmas and take my kids,” he said.

Darvish Fakhr graduated from the Slade School of Fine Arts, London in 1997. In 2004 he won the BP Travel Award, through the National Portrait Gallery; his subsequent trips saw Iran become his principal subject. He has exhibited in Tehran at the prestigious Aun Gallery. In 2008 he was asked by the National Portrait Gallery, London, to paint a portrait of the contemporary dancer Akram Khan; his nine part panel painting forms part of the NPG’s permanent exhibition. ‘Palimpsest’ is his first solo exhibition in London, held at EOA Projects, a gallery platform for artists working between the Middle East, Europe and the US.

 

Denise Marray is an independent writer based in London.