by sam tahmassebi
Acrylic and gloss paint on foam boad
h: 70 w: 120 (cms).
The work draws attention to contemporary iconography; capitalist innovation; the culture of universality and how they emerge from and connect to history, race and society.
Tahmassebi’s practice poses questions about modes of production and their impact on individual and social consciousness. In this series, two dominant forces writ large, media and commercialism - social media and brands in particular - combine in a cacophony of soundbites, submerging historical roots into what Tahmassebi terms ‘cultural homogeneity’.
Incorporating elements of branding and design, such as the constant rebranding of objects; internet culture, such as its élan for prosaic quotes, and iconographic history, such as the genealogy of iconography, they highlight the manifold layers and intersections of contemporary society.
Through contextualisation, composition and deliberate cacophony, Tahmassebi calls into question the established tropes of thinking, perception, objectification and signification, as mirrors for individual, social and political dissipation. His work reflects on social history through metaphor and iconography, using forms and text as potent allegories for exclusion, marginalisation and obstruction.