TEHRAN-Iranian painter Farhad Moshiri passed away on Wednesday in Tehran due to cardiac arrest. He was 61, IRNA reported.

He was born in Shiraz, the capital of Fars Province, in 1963. He studied fine arts at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, in the 1980s, where he first started experimenting with installations, video art and painting. He returned to Tehran in 1991 and subsequently became well known for his ironic interpretations of hybrids between traditional Iranian forms and those of the consumerist and globalized popular culture widespread in his country.

In the early 2000s, Moshiri was most readily associated with his paintings of jars, which are decorated with traditional Iranian sayings and poetic verse, written in Persian calligraphy. These monumental containers have been described as receptacles of life, memory and desire, and reflect his fascination with archaeology.

His painted jars, which form a trademark of his production, look like three-dimensional objects, bursting with popular foods, drinks and desserts, with popular scripts elegantly written on their body.

Moshiri was also interested in the repetition of numbers and letters in scripts for their intrinsic beauty as opposed to any literal meaning or sense they might hold.

Moshiri’s artwork is rooted in pop art dialect with a subtle, subversive socio-political commentary. Moshiri’s richly embellished paintings and sculptures explore the intersection of Eastern and Western popular culture, the tension between traditional craft and contemporary art practice, and the malleable nature of identity.

His interest in pop art and kitsch resonates throughout his work. Many of his visuals are pulled from cartoons, films, comic strips, children’s books, and advertisements, while phrases appropriated from classical poetry, soap operas, and pop songs blur the lines between art and cliché.

By selecting ambiguous source images that reference both American and Iranian popular culture, Moshiri took a complex look at how cultural identity was defined.

Moshiri’s pieces have been sold at various local and global auctions. In 2008, he became the first West Asian artist to have a work sold for over $1 million at an auction.

His work is held in several public collections, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, the Farjam Collection in Dubai, and the British Museum in London. His works have been showcased at galleries in Dubai, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Brussels, Salzburg, and London.

SS/SAB