Here is another example of this trans-dimensionality that runs through the works: it looks as if there is a crack, as if the very landscape is destabilized, or another painting was inside of this one. We are unable to decipher foreground and background, and the typical painterly gestures are also blurred and confused by these various interventions.

In this one, the print is painted and then photographed and then put over the painting, so the background becomes foreground, and there are many intricate layers that are unseen. So what is concealed by the paint then reveals itself again. Sometimes it’s not a photo of the piece but the media image itself, which is layered back onto it, as is the case with the mountains in the background here.

Eastern influences are visible again: the detail of the head is inverted and repeated, upended and placed in ‘al shems’ starbursts that are widely used in Islamic ornamentation.

The sour cherries are a kind of ‘pop’ element, and are prevalent in street culture in Iran. They show up in popular poetry—works read by and recited by bazaar shop owners and such. One talks about a handkerchief that is lost in a sour cherry tree, and the other talks about lemons that are like breasts, which we see in the next image. This of course harks back to gardens in Persian miniature paintings, in which fruits and images abound.