The city that Peyvandi depicts is neither a mental pattern nor a personification of a harmonic utopia, but rather a unified mass impenetrable to either concept. A form with clear boundaries between what is and what isn't the city.
PARHAM PEYVANDI (b. 1989, Iran) holds a BA in Urban Designing and an MA in Painting. Peyvandi's paintings mainly focus on the contradictions as well as the connections between the urban and natural sceneries. His educational background in urban studies and the enchanting landscapes of his birthplace, Mazandaran, are the two main points of inspiration for his works. Represented by SARAI Gallery, Peyvandi had a solo booth at the Armory Show 2022 and has appeared at several other top art fairs around the world including KIAF Seoul 2022, ASIA NOW 2022, and Taipei Dangdai 2023.
Whether representational or imaginary, for Parham Peyvandi, the process of creating urbanscapes begins with strolling around, sketching, and taking quick notes out in the real world. To paint the fantasy realms in "Gazing Through the City", he would continue to work inside his studio, away from the urban context, creating a necessary spatial and temporal distance where the soulless urban spaces could blend with imaginary elements thanks to the use of a bright color palette and bending the rules of perspective. The imaginary elements in Peyvandi's works are influenced by his life and are shaped based on his state of mind and the conditions of his society. Similarly, Peyvandi's recent representational scenes, particularly the paintings, offer 'deafening silence', as if the city blocks are meant to host anything but 'life'.