Farrokh Mahdavi Iranian, b. 1970

Farrokh Mahdavi (b. 1970, Tehran, Iran) taught himself painting before studying with master painters and cultivating his passion for the medium. He lives and works in Tehran.

Canvases of Farrokh Mahdavi can be distinguished through unique pinkish hues. His technique aims to defamiliarize the well-known facial elements in a face. The fleshy-pink color of the artist's figures allows the rendering of "a more general depiction of human beings devoid of stereotypes of gender and race."  The faces in Mahdavi’s work are reduced to features like the eyes or the lips, and the rest are covered by thick layers of pink paint, hinting at the emotional world of his characters. He tries to specify forms and conditions without directly depicting anything additional, as he believes it deviates from the main point.