The Shaving portfolio is based on a series of paintings by Farrokh Mahdavi between 2014 and 2016 during which he has created more than 20 paintings regarding the concept of shaving. As he explains, the image of seeing himself in front of the mirror everyday, shaving his face in order to ignore his hair growing white, made this banal act an obsession he later transformed into a series of artworks.
While it might seem Farrokh has repeated his work over two years by painting the same subject or the same compositions, this repetitiveness became a concept in his works : The process is not about repetition at all, but rather about being able to explore or examine a particular idea or issues in progressively deeper and more meaningful ways and from a richer variety of perspectives.
Repetition in a similar manner to the rhythm, helps Mahdavi to create a sense of movement and tension within his bodies of work. In visual production, it is a recurrence of a particular line that challenges the public to slow down and take time to focus on a subject or concept.
Working in series helps us get to know the artist over the time, understanding what is going on his mind what are the issues he is dealing with and most importantly what is the message behind his works. Created as a conclusion of this project, The Shaving portfolio highlights Farrokh’s paintings in a small scale curated presentation. Created in 30 editions, each portfolio contains five original Photo-Intaglio prints and a unique painting mounted on paper.
