The artist Massoud Hayoun was once a journalist and his paintings unfold in the same cyan as a ballpoint pen in a lined notebook. Often featuring figures at a table, the viewer gets the sense of having burst in on a dinner party. Nine times out of ten Hayoun paints faces turned towards the viewer in a theatrical manner reminiscent of a mural.
In Can You Believe Some People In This Country Don’t Eat On Purpose? (2023), a lion has come round for dinner. One of the men sitting next to him raises a quizzical boomerang of an eyebrow, as if daring you to find this symbolic. The scene is blue except for the lion’s yellow eyes and a red pomegranate cut in half to reveal white pith in the shape of a peace sign.
Pomegranates turn to peppers and red mountains and chechia hats. Peace feels fleeting. The works are somehow both diaristic and dreamlike, too faux-naive to be nightmares. Another night, maybe. In one scene, star-shaped autumn leaves roll across the streets like a consortium of crabs invading. They whisper, Shhh, something’s coming.
PLINTH MAGAZINE
May 23, 2024
