Mehdi Ghadyanloo Iran, b. 1981

Mehdi Ghadyanloo (b. 1981) graduated with a B.A. from Tehran University’s College of Fine Arts in 2005, and later earned an M.A. in film studies from Tehran’s Teachers College. His work combines minimalist themes and a surrealist aesthetic in his paintings, using acrylic, oil, or watercolor. He uses the trompe l’œil technique of his murals to compose his paintings that take on the shape of square boxes with dreamlike imagery and hyperrealistic technique. Each of his works reveals his brilliant ability to trick our perception of reality. Shadow and light overlap and challenge each other endlessly in Ghadyanloo’s practice, and the symbolism of the movement from darkness to light is at the heart of his vision. All the elements that he depicts in his paintings — ladders, fences, holes in the ceiling — are methods of representing a way out, a kind of hope. 

Mehdi Ghadyanloo is based in Sarrebrücken, Germany and New York, US. Recent solo exhibitions include: “The Untold Stories,” Almine Rech, London (2023), “Mehdi Ghadyanloo,” Gagosian, New York (2022), “Mehdi Ghadyanloo,” Gagosian, Hong Kong (2022), “To You from the Sun,” Almine Rech, Paris (2021), “Project Space,” Almine Rech, Paris (2020), “Portals of Light,” Golsa, Oslo (2019), “Finding Hope,” World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland (2019). He was the first Iranian artist to complete a public commission in the US after the revolution.