Axel Pahlavi lives his painting, surrounded by his painting, in times of crisis and of peace both. On the immaculate canvas surface, with a power and an empathy frequently terrible but always delicate, he executes the people around him. From the furious urgency of his first canvases, fascinated by his childhood heroes, the Iran of his origins, his alternative culture, he keeps the habit of referencing and mixing. He has also since found a sort of wisdom, as well as love itself - in his paintings of his partner Florence - and more recently, the Catholic religion.
His hyperrealism can fascinate or disturb, but the artist is wary of his own dexterity and keeps it at bay with his choice of complex, provocative subjects as well as his cinema-inspired framing. Clearly influenced by Anglo-American painting, the evolution of his art reveals itself here, page after page. His recent return to a certain European classicism would have pleased Dalí, both his picks of subjects and the virtuosity, the ease he demonstrates.
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Art Book Magazine