Payam Jafari

When I was 7 years old, my father bought a print version of a painting, which just a few years ago I became aware of its impact on my vision. It was Entre Les trous de la memoire , in English Between the Holes in the Memory by Swiss painter, Dominique Appia. I remember I used to stand in front of it and spent hours and hours just looking at its detail and dreaming.In each corner of his paintings, there is something to hang on. It is designed meticulously, and it’s done delicately. Structure in his works lets you see the concept and flow in it. The form is unique and it is the form that defines the content, and by that I mean, a configuration of elements, which eventually makes the concept seen as a whole. My master, who I have been painting under his direction since 2006, prominent Iranian painter and calligrapher, Professor Hossein Kashian, was the first who exposed me to such artists as Velasquez, Vasarely, Modigliani, Rubens and Jacques-Louis David. I have never wanted to paint with their technique or choose a subject matter similar to what they did, but I wondered what they were feeling and thinking? What had inspired them? What was in their unconscious? So I can do my way, right or wrong, weak or strong, but my way. I would like to paint Images that I create in my mind, reflections of what I have experienced and felt. Subjects and stories that bother me in society, girls who I loved, moments that I enjoyed, and times that I want to forget, I paint them. I paint love, contradictions, and memories. In Tehran, In San Francisco, or anywhere next, I move forward I create more and more images in my mind. We all have been formed by what we lived, and I am the result of what I have lived. I don’t want to call myself an artist. Being an artist, and to be called so, is something that I value and respect, so if I earn it, I will be pleased. Payam Jafari San Francisco Feb 2020