Tongue Tied

Sargent’s Daughters Gallery
New York
2017

Raad’s work presents a contradictory combination of beauty and fear though the displacement of objects and interruption of perspective, imbuing his non-human subjects, such as fruits, animals and objects, with a conscious that allows them to become self-aware and animate. Drawing from Persian miniature painting, South Asian truck ornamentation and digital glitch imagery, Raad inverts the usual narrative of decorative subjects playing a passive role and puts them center stage. Butterflies, birds, fruits and flowers are extracted from their familiar context and given a life of their own. As we look at the shining bowl of fruit bedecked with petals it takes a moment to realize the oranges repeat in a manner not found in nature. We are at once in the realm of the familiar and the alien, plunged into the anxiety that is woven through Raad’s work, making an unfamiliar event out of everyday life.
 

Image courtesy Sargent's Daughters and Iman Raad

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