Parviz Payghamy

PARVIZ PAYGHAMY — Parviz Payghamy’s paintings depict abstracted landscapes weaving together and creating a simulated motion.  The rich tapestry of patterns curve and bend through the picture plane.  The landscapes are poetic, which is appropriate as Parviz was dubbed “the poet painter” by his friends, professors, and colleagues at the Tehran University where he studied.  His fascination with poetry provides his paintings with the fleeting beauty of life and the melodic quality of color.

At eight years old, Parviz Payghamy discovered his talent and love for painting and by the age of sixteen started working professionally as a painter.  His early realization of his life’s passion could have been inspired by other artists in his family.  Parviz says that both his older brother and his grandfather were artistic.  Crediting Paul Klee as one of the key painters to have inspired him and Fedrico Garcia Lorca as one of his favorite poets, Parviz explains that art helps him to express the way that he looks at and thinks about the world and about his life.  Parviz says about his work, “Painting is a visualization of life and sadness, happiness, and all emotions are translated by means of lines, shape, color, and take actual form.  A picture is made and that is how the artist communicates with his inner self and with the viewer.  The expression of the subject is what is important not the actual subject itself.  For it is the expression that is worthy of thought and reflection.  Whether it is an apple or a bottle, a face or a figure, I ask the viewer to view my art within that context. It is the singer, not the song.”

Parviz Payghamy was born in Tehran in 1961 and studied fine arts, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree at the Tehran University.  His work has been shown in Iran, Europe, Canada, and the United States.  He lives and works currently in California.