Lot 79: Shohreh Mehran (Iranian, b. 1957)

Shohreh Mehran (Iranian, b. 1957)
City Landscape
signed and dated in Farsi (lower right)
oil on canvas
39 x 59in (99 x 149.5cm.)
Painted in 2007

London, Artspace Gallery, 'Collected Memories', 9-27 October 2007

One of Iran's most intriguing photorealist painters, all of Shohreh Mehran's paintings depict scenes of urban life in Tehran. She first takes several photographs of a scene has interest her (streets, street signs, shops, buildings, or figures). Although all have the flavour of 'documentary', some are staged. She then enhances the images digitally before using them as the basis of her canvas paintings. The results are highly succinct images, dispassionate yet evocative, each of them a fragment of the life and environment of Tehran.