Mehrdad Rashidi
Mehrdad Rashidi was born in Northern Iran in 1963. At the age of 20 he fled Iran because of his strongly held political views and settled in Germany. In 2006 he began to draw. He found that it relaxed him and made him feel happy, he also thought of his homeland, his childhood and easier times in his life whilst he doodled on any piece of paper that came to hand. Using old notebooks, envelopes, shopping receipts and discarded advertising pamphlets, he gradually, in what seems to be an obsessive and compulsive surge of creativity, began to produce an extraordinary, and hauntingly beautiful body of work. This outpouring has continued to this day, the momentum and the joy it has given the artist has not ceased. In 2013 Rashidi was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix for Marginal Art at the 16th Biennial of Naïve & Marginal Art in Belgrade and his work is now in several collections including the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne and the Museum of Everything in London.
“I was not interested in advises (sic), how to work, nor did I copy anyone else’s work. I was happy that I had started and I´m still curious how it develops and grows. All I draw comes from me, my own feelings. With my pictures, where you find different animals, human beings and all sorts of creatures, I feel happy and free. I can draw for hours, day after day .I have to care for my two sons, so I do my drawings whenever I can in my spare time.”
EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
2019 2nd Triennial of Visionary Art, MNMU Museum, Belgrade, Serbia
2019 A Unique Vision, Orleans House Gallery, London
2018 Outsider Art Fair, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York (with Henry Boxer Gallery)
2016 A Discerning Eye, Orleans House Gallery, London
2013 16th Biennial of Naïve & Marginal Art, MNMU Museum, Belgrade, Serbia
2013 Outsider Art Fair, Paris (with Henry Boxer Gallery)
