Tala Madani is an Iranian artist who uses a variety of mediums and art styles ranging from sketches and paintings to stop motion animations. Madani’s works are often satirical pieces that show how various aspects of society are in contrast with each other. Her pieces also explore various ideas about society, such as the way certain cultures are perceived, as well as artistic ideas and practices, like how light is portrayed and the importance of her caricatures and symbols.
Madani makes much of her works so that they entertain her and her audience while speaking on key themes that she finds important. One idea that Madani includes in many of her pieces is male interaction with society and with others. Madani’s pieces often have male figures interacting with other male figures or children, and she uses them to satarize the things that men do, analyzing both ideas that men have and social interactions that men are involved in. Although she uses them while depicting some of the more childish or absurd interactions in society, or in depicting other issues in a more surreal form, she has said that the caricatures of men she uses in her painting are not meant to belittle men, but to interact with them through her art.
Much of Tala Madani’s inspiration comes from her upbringing. Madani was born in Iran and moved to the U.S when she was 15 years old. Madani then lived in Oregon for a while and experienced how people in rural areas of the U.S. perceived people from Iran. The experience opened her eyes to different perspectives, and the blending of the different cultures helped inspire many of Madani’s works.
The process that Madani goes through when making a new piece or series involves her making various sketches while pondering various ideas. Madani uses different kinds of “sketching” while she is making a new artistic work. Madani makes sketches of the ideas of her pieces and of the pieces themselves and sets them up in a way that is sometimes like a storyboard and other times like a collection of ideas that may or may not be used in the creation of another series. In addition to a regular sketchbook, Madani paints “sketches” that she also uses to quickly record ideas, and will pull them from a rack of painted sketches is she decides to continue expanding on whatever idea those paintings hold.
In a recent series, Madani explored ideas surrounding the iconic yellow smiley face. In her exploration of the face, she noticed that the face had a sort of force surrounding it. Madani saw that the face represented big ideas like peace, but that it also represented a certain conformity because of its simplicity, recognizability, and ubiquity. She used those ideas as a platform to make a series that dealt with ideas of conformity and cultism.
