Since 2001, Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh have been expanding their own practices by collaborating with each other, producing mixed-media works on paper full of eroticism and wit. Farkhondeh brings his investigations into the forms and beauty of nature to Amer’s bold, sexually explicit explorations of female sexuality. Though they have worked together, they mostly remain ensconced in their separate studios, passing works back-and-forth, adding their own marks to them.
Our collaboration is a mutant riddle…a type of creation that resists control
This method results in compositions built from a series of scrim-like layers that simultaneously reveal and conceal images of masturbating and lovemaking women; patterns of flowers, birds, and insects; cartoon characters; Hindu deities; and passages of Arabic script. Such combinations read as a culture clash—between East and West, purity and prurience, decorum and abandon.