Peybak | "Abrakan: Seeing In the Way It's Not": +2 [Deh-Vanak]

+2 [Deh Vanak] proudly presented Peybak’s sixth solo exhibition, "Abrakan: Seeing In the Way It’s Not", on view from November 28 to December 26, 2025.
In Abrakan: Seeing as It Is Not, Peybak expands their visual language to create a multi-sensory experience in which the boundary between reality and imagination is constantly shifting. The exhibition is built around the ancient duality of darkness and light—not simply as visual elements, but as perceptual forces shaped by human cognition: how ambiguity takes form in the mind, and how light may, or may not, open a path toward truth.
Inside the main hall, one large-scale painting and four additional works are displayed in a dimly lit space. Visitors pass through a gate and enter an environment enveloped in sound. The fusion of audio, candlelight, spot illumination, and partial darkness creates a heavy, enigmatic atmosphere—one that transforms and activates the viewer’s perceptual journey. At the end of this path, a monumental painting invites an encounter that is not simply about seeing, but about standing face-to-face with one’s own summoned self.
In this exhibition, Abrakan—Peybak’s imagined beings—reappear. These figures, central to the duo’s practice from the very beginning, extend a world of visual fiction rooted in repetition and transformation. The relationship between light and truth here recalls the cosmology of Suhrawardi, where light is not merely illumination, but the very essence of truth, a medium through which one moves from matter to meaning. Imagination is framed as a realm between body and spirit—a space where color and form act as portals into unseen dimensions of perception. Seeing becomes a mode of being.
Peybak is the collective artistic name of Payam Beraabadi (b. 1983, Tehran) and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi (b. 1984, Tehran), who have worked together as a two-person collective since 2001. Having met at the Boys’ School of Visual Arts, they decided to forge a unified, collaborative approach to artmaking. Over the past two decades, Peybak has conjured an imaginary world called Abrakan—populated by fantastical beings with recurring faces, hybrid limbs, and frenetic lines. Their paintings often oscillate between chaos and order, repetition and distinction, and a tension between timelessness and the immediate now. This visual world draws from mythology, collective imagination, Persian miniature painting, and mythopoetic storytelling.
Peybak has held numerous solo exhibitions, including The Room of Abrakan (Dastan Gallery, Tehran, 2015), Abrakan (Birth) (Dastan Gallery, Tehran, 2016), Abrakan (Emergence) (Dastan Gallery, Tehran, 2017), Zahouk (Dastan Gallery, Tehran, 2018), Khal (+2 [Fereshteh], Tehran, 2021), Abra-Chah, The Well of Abrakan (GP & N Vallois, Paris, 2020), and Strange Aeons – We Will Meet You There (GP & N Vallois, Paris, 2022).
Their works have also been featured in many group exhibitions, including: Soft Edge of the Blade Vol. 3 (Leila Heller, Dubai, 2025), Frieze No.9 Cork Street (London, 2022), Le Serpent Cosmique (Musée LaM, Lille, 2022), Liquide Liquide (Bourse de Commerce / Poitin Noir de Saint-Ouen, 2023), and Conversation Pieces (GP & N Vallois, Paris, 2025). Peybak has participated in international art fairs such as Frieze London (2025), Frieze LA (2023), FIAC Paris (2018, 2021), Asia Now (2020, 2021), and Art Dubai (2016, 2018, 2022, 2025).