b. 1981 Tehran, Iran

Tala Madani’s paintings depict scenes of depravity, violence, and perversity with a cartoonish glee. Utilizing a series of playful motifs: birthday cakes, candles, blackboards, apples; as loose structuring principles for her intimate vignettes, Madani depicts a world devoid of women. Madani’s thickly painted canvases portray a patriarchal society where the infantile co-mingles with the sadistic. In Bright Eyes (2007) a man holding unlit candles aloft with his eyes simultaneously evokes torture and fetish play. Similarly, Original Sin (2008), in which a man is seen excreting bodily fluids onto a classroom blackboard, simultaneously evokes mischievous defamation and sexual climax. Men, in Madani’s paintings, appear to be developmentally stunted, still playing childish games and acting out with violence. However, as the works themselves are undeniably comical, the nature of Madani’s critique remains ambiguous.