I Am What I See

The doubt of what is, what he sees

Doubt is one of the first concepts that comes to the audience's mind when viewing a photo, a concept that first passed the artist's mind and after his attempt to record it in a frame, now it has been placed on a lifeless paper. The artist has tried to turn doubt into a visual concept to invite the audience to personal exploration. But the concept of doubt in this collection goes further and leads the audience to look for their own reasons, "Glass" is a questionable element that is seen many times in this collection. What is seen behind the glass is the only image that our eyes see, and on the other side of the glass is a truth other than what we see. Truths, including the ordinary and sometimes painful life of a lonely woman, to confused images of a building that is full of glass and full of ambiguity.

However, doubt in the photographer's mind does not need any truth, it is enough that he doubts in the righteousness of one way and turns it into a dead end in his opinion, or the artist is unable to clear his doubts and the result is several photos stacked on top of each other, each one satisfying a corner of his inner sense of ambiguity. Sometimes, however, it does not end here, and the artist uses the magic of color to induce his sense of doubt, and what color is louder and quieter than yellow? He carelessly paints the image and leaves the judgment of his sense of ambiguity to the audience. He closes the eyes of his model in the photo so that his audience finds themselves alone with the doubt of feeling the gaze of the person recorded in the image. It is as if the artist seeks his doubt in the gaze of an animal, whose gaze is full of unsaid words. Ambiguity in the eyes of the photographer is formed in the movements of gray hands and goes up to half of a woman's face and dies in the middle of an old wedding dress. There is no limit in space for the artist, because he sees a mirror from behind the rainwater that has been accumulated on the street and the sky and the result is what he saw and recorded it in an effort to convey his worldview to the audience. The truth of the works is the suspension of this look, a doubt between what the artist's work is and what the audience sees.

Saadat Afzood
August 2021

“I am what I see”

Ego and its surrounding world are connected inextricably. This connection leads to the definition of polysensory perception in relation to subject’s “being in the world”. The sensory-motor forces of the “I” summon these perceptions from the outside world. Thought does not exist outside of this intertwined and continuous world, but exists in “it”. In this world, the sights create thought for photographer-viewer, he looks with a special intent and by raising doubt in his view creates a horizon between the outer and inner “I”. This horizon which is my momentary union with the world alongside photographer’s doubt in his seeing causes a thoughtful creation of picture. Therefore, I become what I see.

 Sohrab Ahmadi