Galerie Nagel Draxler is pleased to announce "Pomegranate seeds", the first solo exhibition by the Iranian artist Pourea Alimirzaee.

The figures in Pourea Alimirzaees paintings are mostly depicted with long, flowing, slightly wavy hair, which is often black in color. Sometimes it fills the canvas like a curtain, sometimes the hair is made of icecream, or it enfolds the whole figure in brown bubbles, but every time the hair exceeds the frame.

Figures that go beyond the frame are one of the main themes of the young painter. He has created this character, a human between woman and man with long hair, who represents many self-reflections of the artist himself. Hair plays an important role in the works since it is one of the most important types of both human self-expression and the presentation and evaluation of other people. It stands for certain traditional and stereotypical norms and is a signifier of culture, race, gender, social pressures, and belonging. The figures of Pourea Alimirzaee cannot be classified.

Alimirzaees characters are beautiful as well as terrifying, they do not have a defined role. Like Medusa, who has become largely synonymous with feminine rage. The artist shows his Medusa without living poisonous snakes, but with six gigantic feathers. The threat that expresses itself through the hair is also reflected in the painting "pistol". Only upon closer inspection one recognizes that the mane of hair consists entirely of gun barrels. The story behind is more peaceful and a childhood memory of the artist: It was his mother's hair curlers that reminded him of pistols when he was a child. Thus, he takes his subjects to the lighter side of life and pursues his imagination.

Pourea Alimirzaee is a storyteller. He observes things around him and lets them flow into his paintings: from childhood memories to art historical influences from the museums in Vienna where he lives to political debates that have accompanied him since his childhood and youth in Iran. As in the painting "Niqab" on which several pairs of eyes look out of the Niqab-covered faces on the oversized skirt worn by this proud human being. It shows that hair is also performative and political. How it looks or whether it is visible or not is never straightforward.

Alimirzaee knows that diversity brings society together and unites a range of perspectives. The pomegranate seeds could be emblematic of this. The fruit with which the artist grew up is unlike any other fruit. Every pomegranate contains hundreds of ruby red seeds, each surrounded by an individual sac of sweet-tart juice contained by a thin skin. In various colors, sizes, and flavors they form a functioning system composed of individual forms.