|
Masoud
Akhavanjam
During
my
high
school
years
in
Germany,
I
once took
part
in a
summer
programme
where
we made
ceramic
‘S’
sculptures.
Students
with
clever creations
were
encouraged
to
create
more
figures and
complete
a
chess
set.
I
was
so
fascinated
by the
process
that
I
spent
all
my
money
on
making hundreds
of
figures–fortunately
I
was
able
to
sell
the resulting
chess
set.
This
was
my
first
acquaintance with
sculpting. After
graduating
from
university
and
starting work
as
the
manager
of a
design
department
at a
manufacturing
company,
I
gradually
gained
a reputation
for
my
eccentric
product
designs. Over
time,
my
interest
in
the
arts
grew.
The
more
I got
involved
in
the
art
world–observing,
studying and
collecting–the
more
inspired
I
became
the
more I
felt
the
urge
to
create
my
own
art.
I
had
always found
the
work
of
abstract
expressionists
such
as Jackson
Pollock
and
Franz
Kline
very
inspiring.
The relationship
between
line,
space
and
expression in
their
works,
as
well
as
the
abstraction
they employed,
made
me
want
to
materialize
the
spatial movement
I
had
always
visualized.
Among
Iranian artists,
Kourosh
Shishehgaran
was
most
influential. I
was,
and
still
am,
fascinated
by
his
abstract ‘portraits’:
layers
of
spontaneously
applied,
spiraling lines
that
mostly
appear
to
outline
a
human
form. Given
my
executive
position
in
product
design,
as well
as
my
engagement
in
sheet
metal
processing and
casting,
I
had
both
a
great
understanding
of
and an
appreciation
for
working
with
metals,
especially stainless
steel
and
bronze.
This
combined
with
my strong
will
to
craft
my
own
designs
led
me,
in
2011, to
create
my
first
sculpture,
a
bronze,
in
my
own workshop. |
