Parjam Parsi works both in music and painting. Although music is his main discipline, he has tried to improve his aptitude in painting to a professional level. Artists who work in several mediums, sometimes transfer concepts or forms from one to another. Music and painting as two media which stimulate two different senses (sight and hearing) can accomplish or reinforce each other by lending formal elements (like rhythm in painting or atmosphere in music) to each other.
From behind the immense silence of painting, one could see a set of silent yet ongoing conversations, which gives an admirable quality to Parsi´s work, as a multidisciplinary artist. These conversations, which in most cases, rise up from the darkness, often advance into the light. Parsi´s work is not narrative, but he does create dialogue in his painting. And since he is a musician, he has a good understanding of silence, so he could effectively make a use of it to activate the suspension of the painterly image. All of these, belong to the figurative part of his work in which, space, time and subject are gathered around the suspended image of the destiny or human form of the figures, and then spread throughout the canvas by the energy of the contrast of colours;
Even in single portraits with those colour strokes on the cheeks, this dynamic is recognizable.
But when we turn to his abstract paintings, which appear “seasonally” as he said once, suddenly all that maturity vanishes away and nothing remains but exercise and practice of emotions. In my opinion, the hidden emotions pile in Parsi´s abstract works is so huge that when it reaches an aesthetic manifestation, it has become meaningless and turned into mere chaotic forms.
In particular his recent collection, exhibited in Baharin Art Gallery seems to mislead the audience. Parjam Parsi is a wandering artist.
He has had many group exhibitions around the world and also A solo exhibition in Toronto, Canada. Except for his recent show, more of his other exhibitions have presented his figurative works. This reveals the different levels of these two categories of his work. So I think that this place-wandering, has not eventuate to a positive result in his professional presence in painting realm. Arts (among the rest painting) are risen from an inner flair and by an inclination to expression. But in my opinion, if the focus on painting as a serious and professional activity gives way just to a mere expression of inner voices, the painter will eventually become a mourner of his individual sufferings and sooner or later he would lost his socio-sensitivity, even if his pain does have a root in social irritations. In any case, Parjam Parsi has been successful in the field of figurative painting and due to the visible traces of experience in the numerous collections he has created in this genre, it can be said that he was able to achieve maturity and excellence in some works. Skillful drawing, sensitivity in spatialization and the optimal use of colour are among his most important achievements in figurative painting.
In the case of abstract painting, the act of abstraction, whether it is objective or subjective, has a reductive nature by which it reduces a proposition or phenomenon from its origin to an image. While in figurative arts, symbols and signs find their way into the work due to their relationship with the painted forms. Since Parsi builds the structure of his paintings not related to the narrative, but by relying on spatialization, that is, his figures do not indicate a specific character, but are a symbol of the human being in general, it can be said that in his abstract works, he cannot reach a relevant space through which the work can express itself.
Parjam Parsi was born in Tehran 1988. He has studied music and works both in music and painting. It is impossible to say for sure where he lives, because he travels around the world and pursues his activities in various ways. It seems that his paintings are also a mirror of his life because they were created in different periods and in diverse tones.
By: Maryam Roshanfekr
