Iman Raad | Tongue Tied

March 18 – May 7, 2017

Iman Raad | Tongue Tied

March 18 – May 7, 2017

Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present Tongue Tied, the first New York solo show of Iranian artist Iman Raad. The exhibition will include egg-tempera paintings and mixed media installation. 

Raad’s work presents a contradictory combination of beauty and fear though the displacement of objects and interruption of perspective, imbuing his non-human subjects, such as fruits, animals and objects, with a conscious that allows them to become self-aware and animate. Drawing from Persian miniature painting, South Asian truck ornamentation and digital glitch imagery, Raad inverts the usual narrative of decorative subjects playing a passive role and puts them center stage. Butterflies, birds, fruits and flowers are extracted from their familiar context and given a life of their own. As we look at the shining bowl of fruit bedecked with petals it takes a moment to realize the oranges repeat in a manner not found in nature. We are at once in the realm of the familiar and the alien, plunged into the anxiety that is woven through Raad’s work, making an unfamiliar event out of everyday life.

Iman Raad (b. 1979, Mashhad, Iran) lives and works in New Haven, CT where he is currently a 2017 MFA candidate at Yale University. This is his first solo exhibition in New York City.