The basic process is that as an artist, I go into pitch darkness without vision and draw with light on photo paper. The color darkroom is fully dark and the images are made with a flashlight actually burning the paper. It becomes conceptual and political, and there is this beautiful promise, or dream, that you go through darkness, not able to see anything and you have full freedom to do anything… I use the human figure and animals to create a visual language within the works, knowing that a viewer subconsciously will look for a storyline. I consciously avoid any narrative structure, but am aware that the repetition of form and figure will send a signal to the viewer that there might be one. In this way, all the figures are treated in a formalist manner, whether it’s a human, a cat or a mouse hole – these elements are treated as forms within a larger composition. To be clear, the rat, or cat does not stand for something specific, but altogether each time, in each work, in relation to one another these forms point to so many things… As a viewer, you end up completing the story or giving it a story and all these possible scenarios come through because of the way the work is operating between the author and the audience.
[Hadi Fallahpisheh, excerpted from an interview with Cultured]
Fallahpisheh was born in Tehran, and currently lives and work in New York. His sculptures, installations, and light drawings have been included in international solo and group presentations.