This past weekend I helped out at JK Gallery in Culver City for the opening reception for Farnaz Farmand's Plunge Into Liquid (not to be confused with the surf documentary Step Into Liquid), her first solo exhibition.
First of all, Farnaz is so sweet and beautiful! She's only a year older than me, I think, and she is so incredibly talented. She works mainly in oil paint, but many of her pieces were super sculptural and some even water color-like.
Hearing her explain her motivations and techniques and inspirations was really fascinating. She explores of lot of themes relating to the beauty of the natural world and its decay; attraction and repulsion; micro and macro views of the world; and influences from all the places she's lived: Iran, Sweden, Alabama, California, and I think somewhere in the Far East? She has quite the life story.
A lot of the pieces are named after plant diseases, with colorful names like "Blueberry Scorch" and "Hollow Heart" and "Canker Boils." "Canker Boils" is the only all-black piece in the collection, and it really does look like a diseased mass of pustules. Surprisingly, when I asked Farnaz about it, she said that there are several layers of beautiful colors hidden underneath....
Farnaz's boyfriend even wrote poems to accomany each piece and together the duo put together a book that sold out the night of the opening party.
Her girlfriends all baked probably a hundred mini cupcakes and decorated them with frosting dyed to match her paintings. (Which made for the best reception EVER, by the way!)
Best of luck to Farnaz in her future ventures!
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