from My East to Your West

Curator: The inspiration behind most of Labbauf’s recent paintings is found in the iconic images that surrounded him as a child, while growing up in Tehran in the 1970s. This landscape was a complete melange of eastern and western influences and informed his sensibilities as a youth. While there was a constant presence of the western world streaming through various sources such as television, comic books, toys, etc. there was also a continuous flow and exposure to various Persian arts such as calligraphy, miniature painting, tile works, poetry, etc. both at home and in academic life. To create this new series, he has extracted elements from sources mentioned above and overlapped them in his linear figurative painting style to create hybrid images.