In his canonical essay, Ornament and Crime (1909), the Viennese architect Adolf Loos famously equated ornament with degeneration and a crime, calling it merely decorative and irrelevant to modern artistic expression. Inspired by the postmodern revival of interest in ornament, Parastou Forouhar re-engages with this concept in an entirely new way, using it as a potent signifier of contemporary culture. Employing the aesthetic paradigms of Islamic art -geometry, calligraphy, and miniature- her work undermines the superficial beauty of these forms and reveals in their very structure the existence of deeply embedded social and political mechanisms of violence, abuse, and power. Joanna Inglot
Under The Banner, 2016
Series of 8 digital drawings, digital print on Photo Rag, all 30X40 cm
Vote For Women, 2019
digital drawing, digital print on Photo Rag, all 60X80 cm
Fleck on The Flag, 2013
Series of 3 digital drawings, digital print on Photo Rag, all 66X66 cm
The Flag Collection, 2010
Series of 3 digital drawings, digital print on Photo Rag, all 100X70 cm
The Shame Flag, 2012
Digital drawing, digital print and laser cut on Kozo Thin paper, 80X80 cm
