Esmaël Bahrani is an Iranian artist born in 1978. Since 2015 hehas been living and working in France. He initially studied at the University of Art and Architecture in Tehran but quickly veered away from the dogmatism of the courses to forge his own path.

In Iran, some part of youth, through their livestyle, dynamism and artistic creativity, refuses to conform to the highly conservative laws of the Islamic Republic and strives to reinvent an open and free country. In Iran, some part of youth, through their lifestyle, dynamism, and artistic creativity, refuses to conform to the highly conservative laws of the Islamic Republic and strives to reinvent an open and free country. Esmaël quickly became part of this libertarian effervescence and became an important figure in the underground scene through his nighttime graffiti. Resembling cries of protest, his powerful works denounced the oppression of the regime. Parallel to his nocturnal expeditions, the artist also worked in his studio. Covering his canvases with wax to better scratch them, he reveals bodies in a chaotic environment that he does not hesitate to amputate to highlight their fragility. Often, only a face remains with powerful corrosive features. The expressive force of this simple presence deeply moves and imprints the retina. Esmaël Bahrani opposes, beyond the violence of forms, a force of life that reveals a universal and combative humanity. The space of his canvases is populated with graphic symbols, eclectic signs evoking both cave art and contemporary graffiti. Phallic weapons and military boots, references to the prison environment, palimpsest-like writings, and inscriptions of Persian numbers revealing the incessant flow of digital data that surrounds us. This semantic profusion synthesizes diverse cultural horizons into an original language.

Esmaël exhibits his works in several galleries where his works quickly attract the attention of the visitors. In 2005, the Azad Art Gallery in Tehran dedicated a solo exhibition to him. His career was launched. In 2007, he was invited by the artist Hervé Di Rosa to Sète to participate in a group exhibition at the International Museum of Modest Arts (MIAM). In 2012, his solo exhibition at the prestigious Dastan Gallery in Tehran was a success. Three years later, in Paris, he gave a lecture at the Institute of the Arab World. He seized his opportunity to be successful there and decided to stay in France. Exiled in Paris, Esmaël Bahrani is initially welcomed in a friend’s studio. In 2017, the Berthéas Gallery organized his first solo exhibition in France and the following year published a book dedicated to his incredible journey. Since then, his committed work has had a growing impact on collectors and amateurs across Europe. Currently, settled in Montreuil, Esmaël develops his art, where the Middle East and the West collide, ancient myths meet underground culture, and outsider art merges with urban art. From his artistic journey in Iran, he has retained a taste for adrenaline and the necessity to act quickly. Even in the shelter of his studio, he continues to give a primordial role to improvisation, to the irruption of accident. His painting is the result of an wrestling match with the canvas. In his primitive rage, nothing is spared: inscriptions, projections, scratchings, scarifications… to the point that it preserves in its flesh the trace of his gesture, both creative and destructive. The canvas does not remain silent. It screams. And it is the time of elaboration, the process of creation itself, forever frozen in its entrails, that one feels like hearing.