Statement:

For over a decade, and continuing, Mirza Hamid’s works have been appearing on the busy streets and back alleys of Tehran, with occasional forays into other cities. To date he has done several hundred murals. The city periodically paints over the murals, as all cities in the world often do to street art, and Mirza Hamid paints more.///

Hamid uses only red earth as his medium, the exact same timeless pigment used in ancient cave paintings. His work refers to the origin of all things, to art being inherent in all humans. He reminds us that we have always been one, one human race. In the context of the vast and modern city of Tehran, he paints on unique buildings chosen with a keen eye, both historic and modern architecture,and takes us to the seed of our want for art.

Mirza Hamid depicts in graceful forms, an extract of all stories ever told. Mirza Hamid’s street murals, are a contemporary iteration of what the word “graffiti” means, while making a connection to the origins of it all, painting with the most ancient pigment ever used in human history, in a modern city with an ancient history.

In this divided world, Mirza Hamid’s work inspire a sense of unity in the human race, and invite us to reach in the ancient memories we all carry in our cells, to remember the day we knew were one. 

“Derived from the Italian word graffio (“scratch”), graffiti (“incised inscriptions,”) has a long history. For example, markings have been found in ancient Roman ruins, in the remains of the Mayan city of Tikal in Central America, on rocks in Spain dating to the 16th century, and in medieval English churches.” *Encyclopedia Britannica

Street art has often been a way to bring beauty into an otherwise bleak existence. Mirza Hamid takes this task to heart. He has traveled to war torn areas of Damascus, where entire families live in ruins.

He gently pivots the vantage point of children living in bombed out buildings, by giving them the gift of beauty, hope, love, and even happiness in conditions where that felt impossible.

He has managed to effect the function of a building, by painting day after day in a half ruined beautiful old structure, mainly used as a squat house for addicts and those down on their luck. He changed the environment by insisting on beauty, to the point that the squatters started to feel better about themselves, some cleaned up their lives, and the city turned it into an attraction with park benches and a patch of grass.