By Kayhan Life Staff
The prominent Iranian artist Afshin Naghouni was celebrated in an exceptional evening of music and art at London’s King’s Place performance hall on Oct. 11.
The evening began with the world premiere of a program of contemporary classical music by the Iranian-born composer and instrument designer Amir Konjani — all of them inspired by Naghouni’s new series of abstract paintings. Hundreds of audience members enjoyed pieces of experimental music by Konjani, who has also written the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning short film “The Silent Child,” as well as music for the London Symphony Orchestra.
Eight double bass players from the London Sinfonietta were joined onstage by the prominent harpist Gabriella Dall’Olio and pianist Aleksander Szram. They played the harp and the piano, respectively, but also instruments designed by Konjani: a Kraken Soveida harp, with steel tubes branching out of it, and a Kraken harpsichord. The other soloist in the concert was the vocalist Eleanor Westbrook
The performance was conducted by Nazanin Aghakhani, a Vienna-born pianist and composer of Iranian descent who in 2010 became the first woman to conduct the Tehran Symphony Orchestra in Iran.
After the hourlong concert, audience members were invited into the performance hall nextdoor, which had been transformed into an art gallery. There, they experienced a striking display of Naghouni’s abstract paintings inspired by Old Masters: Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Poussin …
The abstract paintings — large canvases covered with swirls of vivid color — were dramatically lit against a curtained backdrop. Viewers could make out the traces and contours of the Old Master works that served as each painting’s inspiration.
“Amir Konjani and I had been working with this material for a few years, and the music was familiar to me,” said Naghouni in an interview after the event. “But to see the evening take place in the best possible conditions, both in terms of the music on stage and the paintings in the gallery, was a ‘wow’ experience.”
In a video interview released on his YouTube channel ahead of the concert and exhibition, Afshin spoke of “the magic I saw in painting and drawing. You pick up a pencil and within minutes you create something that, a moment ago wasn’t there, didn’t exist. And that’s magical.”
Naghouni was born in Ahvaz in 1969. His father was a physics engineer for the national Iranian oil company, and his mother, a primary school teacher who later became the school principal.
Though he was not born into an artistic family, he showed a pronounced talent for drawing and painting from a very young age, and started copying Old Masters such as Rubens and Delacroix when he was a little boy.
Young Afshin was 10 when the Revolution happened. The following year, the Iran-Iraq war broke out. Because Ahvaz was located close to the frontline, the Naghouni family fled the city and settled in Isfahan, where Afshin, despite his very young age, was admitted into the studio of a great Iranian master of painting, Nasr-e-Esfahani.
The family eventually settled in Tehran, where Naghouni worked as an illustrator for an advertising firm. When he was in his early 20s, he attended the birthday party of a friend; the security forces intervened, and as he fled to avoid detention, he suffered a fall.
The artist recounted his life story in a 2014 documentary, “Out of Focus,” directed by Afshin Siami.
Naghouni recalled that by the time he was 28, he had experienced Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, his family’s internal displacement, a life-changing accident, and migration to Britain.
Today, the artist lives and works in London, and his paintings are in prominent art collections all around the world. For more information, click here.
