Hiva Nikokar Dashtmian

Portfolio Artist statement: 

My portfolio project explores the broad theme of home. Within this theme I have chosen to focus on my ethnic country and the current country that I live in. I am a British citizen living in the United Kingdom but I am ethnically Persian. You can see this where I incorporate paint colours from the flags and that my photographs are taken in Iran and in the UK in the style of my artists with also the use of displaying photographs of people wearing typical clothing worn in Iran and England . 

I have been influenced by the following artists: 

•North Borders 

•Paul Reiffer  

•Hamid Rastin  

•Peter Grego

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North borders has inspired my perception on home and how I am currently staying in the United Kingdom and it helps show how contrasting my two sides are. You can see this by the way the UK is mostly urban surroundings whereas Iran is less city like and consists of more mountains from the part of Iran I am from. Paul Reiffer has inspired my work to tie together natural views and colourful landscapes. You can see this by the way I have edited my work in Photoshop in the same way Paul Reiffer does. Hamid Rastin has inspired my Iranian perspective of my home topic because he is an Iranian photographer. You can see this by the way I have taken photos in the same location that he has.To further my project, I took photographs of paint in the colours of the Iranian and the British flag. I did this by considering tone. This meant that I could use them to represent Iran and the UK. 

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My development work depicts a combination of my artists through the use of Photoshop. I used this media because, it was easily accessible and allowed me to edit my photographs for their best outcome. My development work is a fragment building up to my final outcome and it consists of all my hard work and passion that has gone into my work to try portray my depiction of home. More over , it allowed me to easily edit multiple elements of photographs into one outcome.

In development 1, I wanted to display my connection to Iran and England .my whole project is about the concept of home .In my photograph , the meaning of it is that Birmingham,Uk is still present with me in Iran and that Iran is with me whilst I'm in Birmingham,uk.I was very happy with the editing of the images within the glass ball as it is a characteristic from my artists work style.I took this photo outside the library of Birmingham which is one of the most known buildings in Birmingham I then also used photographs that I had taken in Iran of the Azadi tower, to portray both sides of my cultural background.

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In development 2,it was necessary that I incorporated this towards my final piece as this is where I used paint, in colours of the Iranian flag and the British flag. This added a unique contribution to my project as the colours really symbolised something rather than just being random colours. Further more , I took these pictures in china town Birmingham and the background picture was taken in a bazaar in Iran Tehran so they both were significant locations in each of the countries.

In my final development, I further built up my work by using two glass balls to create a base practice before my final piece. This allowed me to get a slight preview of what my final piece would consist of. Further more it showed my depth of creativity and unique intake of the initial idea of home .I was pleased with the fact that I successfully edited the paint coming through the glass balls on top of the picture.

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In my Final piece I created a double image, I chose two backgrounds one based in Iran and the other based in England I then edited glass orbs on top of each image. Then I decided to edit a picture contrasting to the location of the background with a picture of someone in typical clothing that would be worn in Iran/England looking at each other within the image. I also decided to have paint coming through the background of the images once again contrasting to the orbs country . I created two edits in this style placed them beside each other and the paint links the images in the middle as both the Iranian flag and British flag contain red so the combined well together in the middle creating a like between the two photos. I am pleased with my project as I think a clear message of home has been displayed and is clear when looking upon my art pieces. I think my  final piece also has a deeper message within that although all the conflict that is taking place in Iran there is still beauty present in the landscapes of Iran and it is different to how media portrays Iran.