Hexen – Judgement (2014) by Ashkan Honarvar
Simply put: Ashkan Honarvar is cool, super cool.
His collection, Hexen, is gruesome, gory, dark, opulent, vibrant, explicit, surreal, sexually perverse, disturbing, unnerving and unsettling, and consequently brilliant.
Whether or not these collage masterpieces can technically be classified as portraiture is open to debate (do bare breasts count as distinguishable features of one’s likeness?). But classifications seem trivial when such truly provocative art is happening.
I feel that Honarvar’s work has the seductive appeal of bygone side-shows. He takes the taboo (nudity, sex and female masturbation) and the grotesque (amputated body parts, skulls and bloody innards) and mixes it with religious scenery, Baroque gilding, weaponry and flora/fauna. The contrast is intriguing and the juxtaposition leaves me with a feeling of both being drawn to further examine the works and wanting to look away quickly. Overlooking the subject matter itself, the colours are beautiful and very visually appealing, which may even make the content more shocking.
Viewing Honarvar’s work revealed to me there is a line when it comes to graphic depictions of sex and sexual violence, and Honarvar not only crosses my line but leaps across it with a phallic pole.
The vaginal penetration of The Examination, obscured by dog cut-outs, is too much for me. As a viewer, I found it too blatant. It lacks the mystery of his other collages. There is also some disturbing imagery of weeping women that I find deeply upsetting, stomach-churning even. It does cause a reaction, mine just happens to be one of rejection. I just don’t want to look at it. It’s not for me. I can’t attribute my distaste to purely a dislike of art depicting violence against women, because I do find the work of Kara Walker, for example, very significant. I think it is in part due the inclusion of the women’s faces; it feels more real and incites greater empathy. In fact, there is something cold, even clinical about the presentation of these images, lacking in the sensuality and romance one might expect or seek from art of a sexual nature. I feel very detached from the pieces though nonetheless curious.
There’s no doubt that my response to H’s work is complex and often contradictory in nature. I find his collages very exciting and his body of work is extensive. Galleries upon galleries of deeply, darkly, disturbing yet beguiling collages. So enjoy (but only if you’re 18+)!