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[soft electronic music]

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Tala Madani: People always come to[br]L.A. for the stars,

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and that's what we're going to[br]do today.

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How fast you can actually get[br]to wilderness

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in Los Angeles is brilliant.

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And I think, you know, you[br]have to kind of find

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the things that inspire you.

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Oh, look at that light.

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Oh, magnificent.

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[Gasps]

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♪ ♪

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It's so close.

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The moon is[br]very close.

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♪ ♪

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[Keys jingling]

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It's a great studio, but...

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a painting studio, what do you[br]need?

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You just need some paint, some[br]brushes, some space.

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Different paintings have[br]different origins,

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but mostly there is an idea in[br]the very beginning.

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It might not be very sort of[br]like a verbal idea,

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but it's still an idea of,[br]like, you want this to happen,

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and then you have to figure[br]out how the image will work to

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make it happen.

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So I was just really[br]interested with the idea that

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there is a really recognizable[br]face,

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and there is no requirement of[br]a nose for this face.

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So I start making a lot of[br]sketches, basically.

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I started with this color, and[br]then I sort of couldn't

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make sense of the orange, so[br]it became all black and white,

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and then I think what really[br]solved it was the idea

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that they should have[br]Hitchcock kind of shadows.

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I was thinking about an[br]ideology of the smiley

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that surrounds a smiley about[br]peace.

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I started to think about him[br]as a dogma, as a presence,

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as a force,

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and when their behavior was,[br]uh, forceful,

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uh, then certainly they're not[br]that benevolent.

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Something else in the show[br]that I was really interested in

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in general was light.

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I think I'm also interested in[br]the word "projector."

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and then somehow, when I was[br]working on them,

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the light of the projector[br]reminded me a lot of a kind of

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religious light, and I thought[br]it would be interesting

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to think about how this[br]religious light is now replaced

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by the projector, and that's[br]the source of the light,

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is, I guess, much more[br]controlled.

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There are a lot more religious[br]references than I've

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ever had before because the[br]smileys seem to be

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like a cult, and that led to[br]thinking about other cults.

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I was really interested in the[br]clash not the clash,

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per se, but the sort of[br]getting closer, adopting,

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the adaptation of one culture[br]by the other,

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whether violently through the[br]smiley cutting off the nose

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of another guy to make him[br]more like the smileys

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or with through desire, that[br]there is this sort of

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budding pushing-closer

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of the two systems.

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You know, sometimes adopting[br]another culture

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can go sometimes wrong, you[br]know?

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In Los Angeles, the landscape[br]being so open,

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you're not really bombarded[br]with a lot of things in front

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of you.

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And there's not a lot of[br]hindrances to sort of, like,

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plow through every day to get[br]to your thoughts, your own

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thoughts.

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I was born in Tehran, Iran,

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and I left Tehran at 15 and I[br]came to Oregon.

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It was culturally, uh, very[br]informative.

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Obviously I was, you know,[br]taken out and brought somewhere

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and it made me really probably,[br]uh, what it taught me most was

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how, um, Iran is perceived[br]outside of Iran,

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more than anything else, and[br]you become aware of

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well, especially somewhere[br]like, um, rural Oregon,

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you know, which is not very[br]metropolitan.

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I mean, it would have been a[br]very different experience if I

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had moved to Los Angeles,

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surely, because there are just[br]so many Iranians in L.A.

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I think there is a proclivity[br]for people to read

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into the figures as from Iran.

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If I was a Mexican artist, the[br]audience would read them as

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Mexican men.

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Focusing on a group of men in[br]my work

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more than a kind of[br]equilibrium

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between a subject of man and[br]woman,

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it's not coming necessarily[br]from a personal experience

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of having women being[br]segregated.

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I think, for me, the reason[br]that I started focusing on men

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is because of my curiosity,

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that in the same way that I'm equally interested in sort of[br]male locker rooms in America,

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it's much more speaking to my[br]own limitations

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of entering spaces...

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which I then work through in[br]my work

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on some level.

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Well, they're not necessarily[br]even, uh, going to be works.

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Some of them are just empty[br]canvases, of course,

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but some of them are, you[br]know, they're beginnings of

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something.

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This figure was trying to fly[br]with feathers,

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and I thought that was quite[br]a, um, that

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that's just sort of still[br]somewhere around somewhere for me.

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So, you know, yeah, just[br]keeping some things I could

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lead.

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In a way, they're like[br]sketch books,

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but in painted form.

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For any painting

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that happens, you know, you do[br]so much and some might even

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don't happen, so this is a few[br]of them that might lead to...

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might lead to little other[br]moments, basically.

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Painting is actually quite[br]difficult.

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I think that's why I'm really[br]interested in it,

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is that it's not something[br]that comes really easily.

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And in a way, I try to sort of[br]paint them in a really loose

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and easy and uncontrolled way,

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so to embrace not just in the[br]image,

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but also in their painted[br]attitude,

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that level of freedom, that[br]level of pure life, joy.

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As a painter, my sense of[br]storytelling

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happens to be satirical or[br]funny.

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It certainly loosens up your[br]unconscious

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to be able to come out in ways[br]that it couldn't otherwise.

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This is a little corner I've[br]made

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for making some animations

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that I'm working on at the[br]moment.

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So this is the, um,

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it's a piece of wood board[br]that's been painted

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with acrylic, and then you can[br]just make the mark,

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take a picture, and erase it[br]and then come back again.

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The animation's going to be[br]about...

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two minutes, maybe two minutes[br]and a half,

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and for that, there will be[br]about 1,700 frames.

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So far, it's just a few steps

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of a figure coming into the[br]space.

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This animation will have a[br]voice.

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Yeah, and it's going to be[br]really interesting.

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It's going to be the voice of[br]God, so I have to imagine

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what the voice of God will[br]sound like.

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This was the first animation[br]where I, um, also had

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a real background, a filmed[br]background.

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I--I get a very, um, naive[br]pleasure from them.

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I'm really interested in this[br]relationship

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between adults and kids,

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you know, the potential

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of what the kids are capable[br]of

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and what the adults are[br]capable of.

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The stories that maybe are the[br]fundamentals

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of, uh, western cultures are[br]very much

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about the kids replacing the[br]adults,

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you know, with "Oedipus Rex."

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But a lot of mythologies in[br]Iran

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are actually that the parents[br]kill the kids,

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sometimes by mistake.

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So, yeah, so we'll see if the[br]kids, um...

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are stronger with the adults.

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The way the paintings portray[br]the figures

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as sometimes childlike or[br]behaving badly

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or not knowing who the[br]aggressor is, and if they're liking

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being victimized or being[br]pulled at.

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I think I'm much more[br]interested in our

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in our culture that looks

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at those particular gestures

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and finds fault in it.

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For me, I think the salvation

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is to behave like children.

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So, in a sense, the true[br]oppressor is the frontal lobe.

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The true oppression would be,[br]like, the controlled behavior.

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The redemption is--is through[br]this misbehavior,

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and I think the--the fact that[br]we would judge them

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as sort of behaving very badly[br]says

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about level of oppression that[br]we put on ourselves.

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[soft electronic music]