Farbod Elkaei | "Livelier" : Dastan's Basement

Dastan's Basement announces “Livelier,” a solo exhibition of works by Farbod Elkaei, opening on November 8th and continuing through November 29th, 2024. This exhibition marks his seventh collaboration and second solo with Dastan Gallery after “Here, We Can Stay For A While” (Dastan’s Basement, 2020).

Nature is requisite in the works of Farbod Elkaei. This is a nature interrupted by sharp colors and geometric forms. Whereas in his previous solo exhibition ("Here, We Can Stay For A While," 2020, and "Double Take," 2022, both at Dastan's Basements), the natural worlds of free-flowing forms contrasted markedly with intruding geometric shapes, in his most recent series, "Livelier" (Dastan's Basemen, 2024), the natural and the geometric have each lost some of their distinct characteristics. New in this series, too, are strokes that emerge spontaneously within the natural environment of the painting. To Farbod Elkaei, every viewer perceives color, nature, light, and geometry in her or his way; his act of painting, in this light, centers on resilience, tolerance, and calm abiding. Finally, "Livelier" comprises two works of oil pastel on cardboard that go beyond the exactitude of geometric forms and spontaneous strokes to offer a window into another dimension in the artist's oeuvre.

Farbod Elkaei (b. 1992, Tehran, Iran) is a painter who lives and works in Tehran. He holds a Graphic Diploma from the School of Fine Arts in Tehran (2007) and an MA in Painting from Sooreh Art University (2015, Tehran). Sharp, prism-like geometric forms interrupt the ground of smooth and subdued natural landscapes in the canvas & cardboard works of Farbod Elkaei. In "Here, We Can Stay for a While" (Dastan's Basement, 2022), nature appears embroidered, lacerated, interrupted, and humanized in places. Geometry and natural landscape went together for a Farbod whose teacher in elementary school represented the latter by the former. His work has since been a negotiation between these two realms. In his most recent collection, "Livelier" (2024), which includes sculptures, nature is no longer represented, and geometric forms are more abstract, but the two contrasting worlds still coexist.