Wahed Khakdan

Wahed Khakdan (b. 1950) is best known for depicting desolate rooms cluttered with piles of old objects. The main theme of Khakdan's works is the instability of time, objects, and humans; he ponders the details of life on which man depends but will be destroyed. We can also notice that the experience of migration has had a great impact on his work.

Khakdan was born into an immigrant family. His father was a scene designer and all his childhood had passed behind the scenes of the theater. He had painted since childhood; the observation of the theater scene and the fantasy space shaped by the arranging objects had a considerable impact on his artistic mindset.

At the age of 13, he won the gold medal in a painting competition while he was at Ramsar's art camp. Gholamhossein Nami was a member of the Jury in this art camp, and Khakdan went to the School of Fine Arts due to his suggestion and studied art under the tutelage of Mohammad Ebrahim Jafari in 1967. He pursued western art movements eagerly along with the conservatory's teachings as well.

After graduating from the School of Fine Arts in 1971, Khakdan was accepted into the field of interior architecture at the faculty of Decorative Arts. He was 24 years old when he held his first solo show at Seyhoun Gallery which marked the beginning of his career. These works which were well received by the audience were abstract paintings with Iranian motifs, especially prehistoric motifs, painted in cubist forms.

In 1975, Khakdan displayed his paintings in Qandriz Hall, his first works in which Surrealist space could be seen. After joining the military in 1976, he learned about the poverty and hard lives of people in remote towns and this experience affected his artistic insights. From this time on, realist figures and objects appeared in his works. He portrayed human beings who evoked states of fear, loneliness, delusion, and horror, and the way he put together elements and objects such as bones, chairs, beds, and floating clouds brought his works closer to Surreal paintings.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution was diversely reflected in Khakdan's works. The paintings of this period were a fusion of past experiences and what he encountered in daily life and society; like the painting of a bloody dress in a suitcase in an empty brown room having floating clouds above. From this period, his works moved towards absolute Realism, however, the presence of corpus in a desolate room, the arrangement of the objects, and the representation type of these banal themes led his works to Surrealism. For affording the living costs,  he worked for theater in various fields such as scene, costume, and mask designing. He collaborated with Iranian, German, Swiss, and Austrian publishers, and depicted more than 40 illustrations for children's books.

Khakdan immigrated to Germany in 1984. He painted small-sized works for a while and exhibited his work at the Oberhausen Cultural Center in 1985; this was the starting point for his career in Germany, making many people know about his art. From that time on he rented a studio and started painting large oil artworks.

Khakdan's paintings reflect his observations and experiences, and he's adhered to the manner for more than 40 years. In most of his works, Khakdan depicts a part of a room where a warm and sim light shines into it; strange and frightened figures or piles of clutters and old objects arranged in a tumultuous and mysterious way. Choosing the front angle, single-point perspective, and the arraignment of old objects have created a sense of nostalgia in these paintings.

He pays great attention to the issue of time passage; the black and white photographs, toys, scattered letters, boxes, and luggage full of forgotten belongings are all signs of a lost life which its traces can still be seen. As he says, the experience of his and his family's migration is reflected in these works. Khakdan has great care in displaying objects in their actual and detailed form, and this brings his way of working close to Hyperrealism, however, he paints completely subjectively and creates his works without using photographs or models.