CCA+D: Arash Mokhtar

“We live in a plastic jungle. Our desires have turned into a production and the selling of fantasies is pre-packaged, neat, and cosmopolitan. It is made to look virtually flawless, the imperfections removed or pushed to the periphery, a plastic paradise where consumption has been perfected.” ~ Arash Mokhtar

Arash Mokhtar creates forms and images whose place in the present is only made clear through an investigation of their own historical complexity. Mokhtar’s paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures, establish a radicalized reality informed by metaphor, allegory and pleasure. The aim of his work is to expose the interstitial spaces that exist in cultural constructions of reality in an effort to dispel the myths perpetrated through social hierarchies. Mokhtar suggests that while we struggle against the illusions of power, only experience and imagination are capable of guiding us through destructive dualities, both high and low. Mokhtar’s social critique, investigated through commercial production techniques and fine art mediums and methods, questions the particulars of the collective fantasy.

Arash Mokhtar will be shown in the Alumni Gallery of the Corcoran College of Art + Design.