Born in 1985 in Meshkinshahr, Iran, Pooya Abbasian lives and works in Paris.

I am an Iranian artist based in Paris since 2011. My practice unfolds through photography, Film, drawing, and installation. Time spent working with filmmakers has influenced the way I consider and question the construction, dissemination, and reception of images. I aspire to make these processes visible but also to construct my own visual fictions.

Today I am interested in the images that are offered to me. I collect documentary images found on the internet or in films as well as photos simply captured with my camera during my wanderings. I consider these recorded visuals for what they are—compositions—in order to divert the paradoxical relationship that exists between image and the idea that we have of reality/verity. The interplay between mediums, the transition from one state to another, has become central to my practice. This sensibility might stem from a life lived between multiple worlds, shaping an approach where boundaries dissolve and overlaps become opportunities. It’s a process that has led me to explore installation and, more recently, film, seeking out spaces where materials and techniques intersect in unexpected ways. In earlier years, my work was more explicitly engaged with themes like exoticism and self-representation, but the passage of time has introduced new layers, shifting focus towards the subtleties of what lies in-between.

It seems to me that the image is produced by fraction—for an image inscribed in space, a thousand other images can literally be born from it—and by effraction—by dependence and emancipation, even detour, of a visual economy which dominates our modes of perception and our cognitive schemes. Ambiguities and transitory states interest me more than affirmations. It is in this state of mind that I seek bridges between mediums and continually test new techniques. I look for the poetic accidents that result from these marriages, which I compare to black holes opening up to horizons to be explored.

Pooya Abbasian

Selected Solo & Duo exhibitions

2018

Discreetly Living Behind Your Face, Galerie52 Folkwang Universität, Essen, Alemagne.

Telesm, Kuturkapelen(Pictoplasma Festival), Berlin, Allemagne.

Selected group exhibitions

2024

ON DONNE DU GRAIN AUX POULES, curated by Emma O’Quigley, Galerie John Ferrère, Paris

2020

Le Radeau des Cimes, Villa Belleville, Paris, France.

2019

En Cas de Pluie (Jeune Création), Friche Etex, Paris, France. 2018 – Artvilnius, La foire d’art contemporain Vilnius, Lituanie.

2016

Face à Face, La Source, La Guéroulde, France.

2014

Transparency, Galerie des petits carreaux, Saint-Briac, France.

2013

Le temps passé, Galerie des petits carreaux, Paris, France.

2011

Nature Regulate, Galerie Mohsen, Téhéran, Iran.

2008

9e Biennale de Téhéran, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Téhéran, Iran.

2007

Exopalasht, Galerie Azad, Téhéran, Iran.