INTERVIEW WITH AMIN ROSHAN

by art journalist and writer Lisa Pollman

Amin Roshan, Neither East nor West, Islamic Republic, 2015, Acrylic Silk Screen with crude oil, 160 x 240 cm

You were born in the Naftoon district of a city called Masjed Soleiman, located in
southwest Iran. Can you tell us more about your childhood and how growing up in this
particular city impacted your artwork?
Yes. The "Naftoon" neighbourhood was built by Englishmen and was where they lived.
After the nationalisation of oil, they left and gradually returned the houses to the heads
of the Iranian Oil Company. We had a big, beautiful house with a small garden in the
courtyard. I have many great memories from there. Behind our house, there was a large
stream. Sometimes the stream was full of oil. In fact, a thin layer of oil floated on the
waters surface. It seemed a little scary, because I was very small, and I could not jump
over the stream like my friends. It was always troublesome for me and my feet were
stained with oil. Later, I realised why oil was floating in those streams. Somewhere near
"Well #1", oil came out of the ground together with groundwater. It was always
problematic. To fix this problem, they directed the oil to the floodways of the city.
All around us were pipes. Large and small pipes with taps on them. Some of them are
still there. We always walked and played on them. Some boys who were older than me,
walked along the pipelines passing across the valley with a sense of pride. Of course, I
never did such a thing. Even watching the scene was scary for me, let alone doing it.
The origins of your family come from the Bakhtiari tribe. Please tell us more about the
creative traditions of this tribe. Any themes or motifs that originated from this tribe
that can be seen in your art?

Bakhtiari tribes were mostly nomadic before the arrival of the oil industry. They made
their living primarily through animal husbandry and carpet weaving. Bakhtiari carpets
are the leading hallmark of these people and are known throughout the world. I
sometimes include traditional motifs in my work but not always. Of particular interest to
me are the contradictions between modern life and traditional culture.
If you look at my work carefully, you can see that in most cases, the pipes, industry and
metal plays a more prominent role than men. All my work is composed of humans and
metal, except two - The first being, Soraya who is standing on a tree (although my tree
is not a real one and it has mostly assumed an industrial tone). Another work shows an
image of Sardar Zafar, brother of Sardar As'ad Bakhtiari (18561917), an Iranian
revolutionary. Zafar is photographed with a carpet behind him, near a desk. Actually, I
made no changes to this work, except adding a pipe with an erotic form. I put it on
Sardar Zafars desk. I find it interesting that a military commander was photographed
with a carpet, a symbol of culture and art. Of course, traditionally there were not too
many objects in peoples lives and, in a twinkling of an eye, industry or modernism
became their object of desire.
Please tell us more about your formal education. As a Graphic artist, how did you
make the transition from graphic artist to visual artist? Are there still elements of
graphic design found in your artwork?
I studied Graphic Design at Tehran University and at the University of Khuzestan. I
worked as a cartoonist for nearly a decade, and by participating in festivals, received
invitations and won prizes. I visited Poland, France, Germany and Turkey. I was almost
25 years old when my drawings became very personal, and no festival would accept
them. Maybe they could not be called cartoons at this point. Gradually, I drew them on
a larger scale and decided to prepare an exhibition out of them.
I believe I drew somewhere near three collections before I set them aside and got the
desired results. However, those collections were still mere paintings. Gradually, I chose
what I had been taught at technical school and university and began to do silk screen
printing.
During those years, the most impressive change in my life and art was because of two
trips to Poland. There, I found that artists drew what they saw and used these aspects in
their works. After these experiences, I started to use all the things that I saw and
touched. At that time I was living in Ahvaz, Iran's oil center, located in the southwest of
Iran.
One of your recent solo shows was called SnowFoam. Can you please tell us what
SnowFoam or Joyful SnowSpray means culturally/historically and how you use
this idea in your artwork?

By choosing this name, I tried to say that oil is like the fake snow used during local
celebrations. In my country, often at parties, a person sprays fake snow into the air and
everyone enjoys the moment. This is not real snow and is fake and synthetic. Since
people experience good memories around snow, they love snowfall to occur during
celebrations and events. Even if its artificial.
In our time, oil is like fake snow. Its end is imminent. All these joys and pleasures with a
will soon be over. Then, what will feed the industrialized world? What will be the
alternative? Nations will fight against each other and do their best to get a drop. It is
very clear, we are ending a golden age of abundance.
Take a look at recent years in Iran. Once, its peak exports were 6 million barrels a day.
Later, it dropped to 1 million barrels a day and then 800 thousand barrels a day! What
happened? Upon searching the Internet, we find the impact this material has had on my
country and worldwide. When the Iranian government could not sell oil, they turned to
agriculture but most Iranian groundwater resources are depleted. In fact, they tried to
replace oil with water but it was not feasible.

Regarding the use of crude oil in your work, from where do you source it? How do you
use it? Is it difficult to use or create challenges that other mediums do not?
I acquired my materials and crude oil from a valley located in the southern part of Iran
and sometimes from relatives working for the Oil Company.
Actually, I use two materials to create the consistency that I need. One of them is the
crude oil accumulated in that valley for perhaps one hundred years. It is a very rigid
medium. The other material is crude oil that has been diluted. I combine the two
substances and make a balance between them to finish my silk screen printing works.
Working with these materials is a difficult task. Many times, I have painted and finished
my work and then the printing has failed. The oil may have been too thin, too thick or so
hot that it burned the mesh, too cold and so on. At times, I spent two weeks on the
painting and then the printing process would fail again! Of course, these days it seldom
happens, but it still can at any time.
Can you please tell us more about the story behind Jikaks Crown.
During the Second World War and thereafter, Colonel Jikak, a British Intelligence
Officer, played an important role in sustaining British interests in Iran. At the end of the
Second World War, he was an employee of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and for seven
years worked as a deaf and dumb shepherd in the Bakhtiari tribe. During this time, he
became well-versed with the local dialect, culture and beliefs of the Bakhtiaris and it
was believed by the ruling Iranian government of the day that the oil fields were truly
under the control of Jikak.

Jikak utilised varying methods and techniques to exploit the beliefs of the people of
southern Iran. One such method was the famous Jikak walking stick with which he
performed wonders, where, for example, when he hit someone with his stick that
person experienced a strange shock. Jikak claimed his walking stick was the best method
to determine whether an individual was born in or out of wedlock. In this way, he had
the potential to ruin powerful and influential people in the Bakhtiari tribe.
Jikak strived to prevent the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry. He encouraged
the Bakhtiaris not to pay any attention to oil nationalisation and he endeavoured to
undermine all efforts by the government-appointed group who were assigned with the
task of seeing through the process of nationalisation. According to Hossein Maki (a
Mossadegh representative): At the time, when the government-appointed group
travelled to Abadan, Jikak decided to incite a number of people to throw the visiting
groups car over the Bahman-Shir Bridge (located south of Khuzestan in Abadan city)
and into the river but this plot proved not to be successful. In the end, the Iranian
government came to learn of Jikaks disruptive activities in trying to prevent oil
nationalisation and duly expelled him from Iran.
Jikaks name is still remembered and recognised by the people in southern Iran, a
symbolic name associated with guile and cunning. To this day, individuals who are
widely seen to share Jikaks cunning characteristics are labelled Jikak and whether they
may know of him or not they say: Such and such a person is very Jikak.
In the Jikak Crowns exhibition which was held in 2011, I used the same safety helmets
worn by the National Iranian Oil Companys workers, hats which were made in the
United Kingdom and are strongly connected to nationalization. My father obtained
authentic helmets from the Oil Companys old warehouses in southern Iran. These types
represented two classes of employee: boss (much like todays baseball cap) and worker
(rounded around the rim). These differences made it easier to differentiate between
types of employees with a glance.
Your father accessed authentic helmets from the National Iranian Oil Companys
warehouses and you now use these helmets, originally fabricated in Britain. Please tell
us more about the designs on the outside of the helmets and what is found in the
interiors.
The motifs that I used on these helmets are themes adopted from Iranian culture. These
motifs can be found in Iranian paintings or architecture. In some, I used "Finglish" texts.
Finglish is a new term used in Iranian modern literature. When mobile phones were
imported to Iran, Iranian people began to write Farsi with English fonts to send
messages to each other. Southern Iranian culture is full of English words. In particular,
there are still poems and proverbs among Bakhtiari ethnic groups that are expressed in
English without anyone noticing it is in English. They have integrated it into their culture.

For example, I recently went to buy a lamp holder. I said to the seller Lotfan be man ye
holdor bedid"(Give me a holder) and he said that he did not know what a holder was.
I tried to use Finglish in this series, and I think before that time, no other artist had ever
done so. These are helmets of ordinary oil workers, and in some of these helmets, there
are memorials under the cap. On the inside of some of these helmets we can see
markings or remnants related to those workers who wore the hats in days gone by. The
workers have written their names or the dates of their operation, a sentence, poems
and things like that. I kept them as they were, because they were the historic records of
those helmets. I just tried to change their use and somehow connect them to
contemporary art.

Amin Roshan, I even keep the women's safety, 2012, Engraving on safety hat, 49 x 29 x 29 cm

You participated with a work from your Jijaks Crown series in a group show in Dubai
last year at the JAMM Art Gallery entitled Rose and Nightingale. Please tell us how
your work interpreted the well-known traditional Gol-o-Bolbol theme in a
contemporary way?
Flowers and nightingales are frequently seen in Iranian paintings. These motifs
represent a cheerful and spiritual atmosphere in Iranian literature or mysticism in which
these two are always tied together. I felt that the flower symbolises nature and the
nightingale is the symbol of life found in Persian literature. It is a symbol of what a
seeker receives from nature on the path to mysticism. For example, the famous Iranian
artist and poet, Sohrab Sepehri said "Frogs are singing, the night raven sometimes [does
so]". Flowers and nightingales may not be a sign of mysticism, or it may not recall
literature to anyone anymore but since I am active in this field, I feel that in this vast and
infinite space of Persian literature and mysticism, Iranian paintings and forms are not
separate from them.

I used flowers and birds on my helmets in a very simple manner, because my helmets
are self-evident enough. They carry symbols, signs and political and social memories
with them. I chose not just any type of helmet but the actual helmets from the Oil
Company. Oil is now tied with culture, customs, traditions, politics and many other
things in the media. I hope one day, the flower and nightingale will exhibit the character
of what they were originally created as.
Where can we see your work? What are you working on now?
You can follow my work on my website (www.aminroshan.com). My work is found in
private collections in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and can be seen at
the Salsali Private Museum (UAE) and in Kuala Lumpur at the Islamic Arts Museum
Malaysia.
I am currently studying and learning more about Iranian history, books about mysticism
and notable philosophers (Khayam, Mawlana, Shabestari). I am also observing
contemporary art and drawing, especially artists like Roy Fox Lichtenstein and Gerhard
Richter. My next collection may be a combination of the last two collections. I am
currently testing new materials.