Vulnerable Men

Paintings

by Tala Madani
19-Sep-2011
 
Wikipedia: Tala Madani (born 1981 in Tehran) is an artist based in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. She is a painter whose recurrent motifs include men, often made vulnerable, which gives the effect of reversing the conventionally objectified female body in painting. Her painting style is loose, incorporating gestural brushstrokes into figurative narrative scenes that often have a bizarre, fetishistic quality to them. The men in her paintings often appear to be ridiculed, and clownish, and the loose brushstrokes and flat pictorial space give an almost cartoon quality to her paintings >>>
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Mash Ghasem

Does anyone remeber Ashur Banipal?

by Mash Ghasem on

Or is this "double ID" the only one.

I'm refering to the Iranian-Assurian artist. not the myth!

Did a google search, it's was hopeless. As if he never existed.

 


Omid Hast

Here are some explanation from Saatchi Gallery

by Omid Hast on

Painting #7, Two Pillows and a Bolster devises a ‘slap-and-tickle’ approach to formal painting.  Picturing a man lying across a bed with his unwound turban suggesting the final stages of seduction, the visual clues to his wantonness lie in the painting’s composition rather than its image: the mattress and pillows form a female torso, the man’s body creates an immodest shape and angle. Rendered in the muted tones of soft-porn, Madani’s muse resolves as a lusty wannabe centrefold, or more comically, a frustrated and repressed depiction of a quiet night in for one.

Here is the link for more explanations from Saatchi Gallery,

//www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tala_mada...


default

Why these paintings remind of Ashur Banipal?

by Hooshang Tarreh-Gol on

Just because!


angali

Iranian Man!

by angali on

If anything, Ms. Madani's work shows the Iranian man in his purest (and maybe most honest) form: The man-child-bully! The irony is even the men who are not bald and have no mustache, men who might even resent this man, identify with the man in these drawings. What is interesting is the additional (at first, undetectable) layer; that is, that fact that here it is not the "man" who is honestly exposing himself, his true nature, but it is a critique—a woman—who is analyzing this man, humorously, as well as angrily (maybe, if not most probably!). In addition to exposing the absurd and ridiculous nature of man, the artist also exposes her own self: her own frustration and anger as a woman; and she uses her anger in the form of an undetectable fist, with which she hits the spectator right on the nose. I was hit on the nise and yet I really enjoyed every piece of work—the wit, the humor, the sarcasm, the analysis (particularly). Now I can hardly wait to see Ms. Madani draw an honest set with the Iranian woman as the subject!


Truthseeker9

...

by Truthseeker9 on

The only message I did get was the flies using the bald head as a landing strip, perhaps a caption underneath each picture would help. Though I would be too scared to ask about  23
and 24.
 


vildemose

 Revolutionary work.

by vildemose on

 Revolutionary work. Though I don't get all the multi layered hidden messages but the entire collection is acerbic and moving on so many levels; brutally exposing the monumental insecurities of men...well done.

Reform requires the consent of the corrupt


Anahid Hojjati

I like your style

by Anahid Hojjati on

But I have to be honest and say that I don't get the messages. Your style is very fun though and I love it. I wish I could understand your messages better.


Faramarz

Bald and Hairy Men!

by Faramarz on

In all kinds of compromising situations!

There is humor in these drawings, somewhere.


Jahanshah Javid

genius & gender

by Jahanshah Javid on

I was asked by an artist yesterday if I was familiar with Tala Madani's work. The name rang bell. I checked and she was featured as Iranian of the day many years ago but I had not seen her recent work. I was fascinated by the absence of women and the objectification of men instead -- a sort of role reversal in the world of art where so often it's about women, their beautiful form and vulnerabilities.

brilliant, brilliant work.