A closer look into david heshmatpour’s painting from in search of something more

The recent DVAA Member’s Exhibition, In Search of Something More, relied on each artwork to create the narrative of multiplicity it possessed. Each work expressed a moment of “search”, through reflections on the historical, personal, and poetic. Together, they produced a space where each artist’s inner desires and purpose of their work were the main focus.

I selected David Heshmatpour’s painting titled Vanitas to be included in the exhibition because it appeared to me to be a search for self reflection and tradition. The paradox of the cracked cell phone (an endless information base, rendered useless) made me think about humanity and our continual speeding up of life’s processes. I thought about how much we rely on this object when searching for information or gratification and how quickly it can be taken away from us. The painting can be perceived in a multiplicity of ways, encouraged by its enticing form and patiently handled surface. Below, David writes a detailed explanation of this artwork, it’s influences, and his personal path to creating it. I sincerely enjoy this deep-dive into his practice and mode of thinking, and hope that you do as well.

-Danielle Degon Rhodes, DVAA Gallery Coordinator.

Vanitas and In Search of Something More

My process essentially boils down to distillation. 

I throw everything I want to convey: ideas, feelings, references, etc., include work from multiple domains like writing, and let it cook in a big ole pot. I let it simmer and ferment for a while as everything blends together and overlaps, visually and thematically. After a time, it boils up and I let it condense again by making a draft of the work.  Then I burn off the final product, letting everything unessential fall away and allowing what remains to condense into the form it wills. The process repeats, adding and letting things fall away with every new iteration until the work cannot be further reduced or added to in a meaningful way. The goal is to end up with a very refined, considerate, and personal work: a high-proof essence of my own spirit. 

How this process looked and worked when making this piece:

I was in my junior year of my BFA and one of my artistic goals at the time was to revisit classic genres of painting while specifically not using motifs typically associated with the genre, but utilizing more contemporary symbols and technique.

The title pretty much tells you exactly what this painting is and what it’s about. A Vanitas is a classic genre of still life focusing on mortality and transience of life.  In Latin, Vanitas translates to “emptiness.” For me, in this piece, Vanitas is also about the reconciliation of paradoxes.

In the summer of 2019, I had moved from Central Illinois to Philly only a couple of years prior. I was in an unhealthy relationship while socially isolated as I struggled to make new friends, and my father had just passed away after struggling with dementia for five years. Processing my pain and grief through my work felt like it could be a way to work towards some sort of catharsis, and a meditation on mortality seemed the appropriate place to start.

At that time, it felt like so many aspects of life and broader society were dividing into diametrically opposed factions that carried into the most granular and minute aspects of every field, especially art. As a country bumpkin late to the scene, it seemed like Western art history was a series of ideological battles that people were still all-too-willing to ride-or-die for. In the 20th century, representational painting came to be an intellectual football in the battle between Capitalism and Socialism. In the 21st century, it's becoming a cultural signifier for social conservatism again. I just wanted to make stuff I thought was cool and hopefully thought-provoking, but it felt like every choice I made was so fraught, tantamount to aligning myself with whomever was previously associated with the technique or style. 

I felt so alone and pulled in so many directions, and I couldn’t understand how people could identify with their personal preferences so completely that they would denigrate others for different preferences.  I knew different artistic impulses could exist harmoniously and this work was in part an attempt to prove it.  I felt the paradox only existed as an artifact of people’s biased framing.

For me, a painting starts from the ground up, and I wanted to reflect dualism all the way down. The history of Western painting is rife with competing ideologies, so I used that language specifically.  I used a very traditional ground: marble dust and glue on a very modern material: aluminum panel.  The gesso is applied in some areas with a rough, fresco-like surface, which I opposed with a smoother, more enamel-like surface, thereby putting early Italian painters in conversation with later French Academicians.

I chose the square because symmetrical shapes tend to produce the effect of a sort of timeless stasis. It’s a shape frequently favored by minimalist painters, such as Malevich, Rothko and Rauchenberg. The minimalists are associated with the idea of “white” and “black” paintings.  I wanted to combine the intensity of those works with the evocative power of the otherworldly, undulating color fields while remaining representational up to trompe l'oeil levels of realization. In this case, the square composition is also a reference to the now ubiquitous pixel and the grid as the de facto schema in digital visual representation.

I made the piece 23 inches by 23 inches. referring to the pairs of human chromosomes with the four sides representing the amino acid pairs that form the building blocks of human DNA: representing human genetic expression. Black and white also represent binary code, the digital equivalent of DNA.

I frequently use a centered composition as a shorthand signifier to say “this is a poetic allegory.” I wanted the composition to be paradoxical too: its flatness refers to the digital screen, and classical and minimalist painting, and is also equally focused on receding or advancing space as per the Baroque. The reflection itself is a  way of inferring a greater space beyond, physically and metaphorically.

I favor what I call a 1-2-3 read of a painting: at a far distance it's a minimalist abstract painting; at a medium distance, it’s very mimetic; at a closer inspection, the object begins to break apart into an aggregate of individual marks and brushstrokes with their own individual character.

I do this to match the fractal nature of how reality presents itself.  If you watch a video that simulates a zoom from very large to small or vice versa, reality apparently tends to order itself in oscillating states from being very structured to chaotic depending on the level of scale.

For the background I chose painted particle board.  Its many layers of processed organic material refer to the biological, spiritual, and emotional layers of this piece. It refers to all organic iterative processes, such as cultural and biological evolution, as the ground from which we originate and to which we give expression. Equally, it refers to the non-human resources we consume and process, providing the material necessities for supporting our human enterprise.

The phone itself is of a time and place. Its system can update, but its form is as susceptible to entropy as anything else. Cracks accumulate and memories are lost while some are transferred to another generation. Slowly, it's outpaced by progeny that thrive in a world whose challenges could not be conceived of when the original phone debuted. When it's powered down for the last time, all that’s left is a black mirror.  If this painting were truly representational, an eye would appear at the center, but I chose not to do so. I wanted it to reflect the void. When the ego is gone and consciousness turns inward on itself, there is no self, no I, to be had. I wanted the work to reflect, or not reflect that.