Interview with Ashkan Honarvar

q)please tell us a brief info about yourself.

a)My name is Ashkan Honarvar, born in Iran ‘Shiraz’ in 1980.

For 20 years now I live in The Netherlands. I have studies graphic

design for three years and after that I decided to focus more on illustration.

After four years I got my bachelor degree in illustration.

I graduated two years ago. For the past two years I have been working

as an artist on a personal project that’s been funded by Funds BKVB.

q)Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you first realized that you wanted to be an artist?

a)That was in Shiraz my hometown when I was four years or five I think.

The Iran-Iraq war was almost over and I remember drawing lots

Of war scenes. With lots of blood, tanks and dinosaurs. I always

got lost in those battle scenes and I remember that I wanted

to do this forever. Of course I didn’t knew what an ‘artist’ was

back then because I was too young. But art has always been a way for me

to escape reality.

q)What are your tools of the trade and why?

a)I like to work with my hands. Collages are really

Fun to make. And I don’t mean the digital ones but

Handmade ones.

Handmade collages have more power than the digital ones. Digital collages are

Far more easier to make. You can scale, rotate and mirror the images.

q)Who or what gives you inspiration on your morbid art?

a)Medical photography has always been an inspiring item. How the human body

Reacts to diseases and war are one of the two things that really fascinate me.

q)Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?

a)All my Artistic background is self-taught. In the Netherlands when you go to an art school they

Don’t teach you a technique for example how you should paint.

The art school is there to guide you in your search to find what you

Want to do with art.

q)How do you keep “fresh” within your industry?

a)Always try to surprise your self by doing new things and learning new ways to

look at your own art. Just locking your self up into your studio isn’t

going to work.

q)What are some of your current projects?

a)Faces-5: In this project I tried to replace the war wounds with candy.

Candy is a symbol of childhood and the naïve. Naïve and childish

Because we don’t really understand how fragile and vulnerable

we actually are as human beings. From here on I want do a full body series about this theme

as my next project.

q)Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?

a)The faces project. This project is still evolving. I really like the challenge

To go on with this project and see where I end. And I’ am happy with the

Result in faces-5. Here I have achieved to bring the whole project in to the

Present and detached form the source material that was used as an inspiration

for the early faces projects.

q)Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?

a)Sculpture and fashion are on my list.

q)What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?

a)I’ am always on the look out to find more inspiration materials like

Medical photographs etc

q)how do you spend most of your free time?

a)Collecting medical photography and inspiration materials to put in to my artistic work and I’ am a big fan
of art house movies. One of my all time favourites is this movie called Salo or the 120 days of Sodom for
Pier Paolo Pasolini.

q)What contemporary artists or developments in art interest you?

a)Matthew Barney is one of my favourite artist. The human body is a central point in his work.

q)We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?

a)All my work on my site is for sale. You can buy the original collages or high quality prints, these can be

Sent to you by secure envelops. The paintings are more difficult, because of the size etc.

But eventually there are ways to do this also.

Or you can come to The Netherlands on 26 February to my first grand solo exhibition in Rotterdam J

This one is going to be huge.