November 12, 2015
SALAR AHMADIAN
NUQAT 2015 - "Copy/Paste Syndrome"


” The work of Ahmadian is particularly important because it highlights a number of paradoxes in contemporary calligraphy: While the academic discussion on calligraphy has a strong bias towards the Arab world, Arabic calligraphy is derived from Persian calligraphy that has been less carefully studied but Ahmadian’s motifs bring to the surface a more dynamic structure in which influences travel back and forth, and as is the case with most Iranian painters, a different relationship to color than artists from the Arab world have, for whom the European palette was not a liberation from the repetitive traditions of the academia but a technical imposition. Different art histories find a meeting point in the work of Ahmadian: Arabic calligraphy, Western painting, the pictorial traditions of Iran, and a very flexible understanding of what it means to be contemporary: It is not a point in time or the erasure of a point in time; it is an anti-historical position that challenges all previous art.” – Arie Amaya Akkermans
Vancouver based Iranian-born artist Salar Ahmadian was born in Iran on 1957. He studied in the college of Fine Arts in Tehran, and then got his certificate in calligraphy in Iran’s association of Calligraphers.
He is a world renowned international artist, whose works has been displayed in both museums and galleries. Notably, his work has been auctioned at Christies and is featured by many major art galleries.
He combines traditional and modern calligraphy, with a more contemporary use of color to draw the viewers. Inspired by pop art, surrealism, and his Persian heritage; a strong sense of vibrancy and energy can be found in every piece.
These large-scale works connect to the viewer in their form of ‘east meets west’ abstraction.