Shiva Ahmadi

Ahmadi’s paintings critically address the machinations and failures of world leaders, the complicity of their drone-like followers, and the impact of resulting wars on innocent lives. Burning Car carries all the trademarks of her work: brightly colored imagery drawn in part from traditional Persian miniature painting, scenes of chaos and destruction, and Orwellian animals running rampant as figures sit idly by. Floating wreckage and viscera suggest the aftermath of an explosion, the scattered pieces of what was once whole. Ahmadi applies layers of sand to the canvas along with a thick impasto of acrylic paint, evocative of smoke and viscera amidst the debris.