Last November Australian artists Guido van Helten and Fintan Magee travelled to Tehran as the first foreign artists invited to paint in the country by the Australian embassy in Iran to celebrate its 50th year of operation.
Titled “The Carpet Repair Men’, the new mural is the result of the artists research on Persian carpet making, its distribution and symbolic place within Persian culture from both an outsider perspective and within.
According to the artists the mural is based on images of two carpet repairmen working in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Persian carpets are famous world wide for their quality and craftsmanship. Working 8-10 hours a day rethreading and stitching old and damaged carpets, the repetitive work requires incredible hand skills and speed. This painting pays homage to the dignity of hard work while putting a human face to an important aspect of craft and culture in Persia.
‘The Carpet Repairmen’ also act’s as a broader metaphor for working life in Iran. Decades of economic sanctions and blockades on imports and have meant that people have to be resourceful in the country. Reusing, repairing and recycling products has become a necessity. Showing the resilience of the Iranian people and how life goes on in this hospitable, welcoming and ancient culture.
Unlike most mural artwork in Tehran, addressing political themes and often propagandistic themes like portraits of fallen martyrs, images from the Iran-Iraq war and portraits of political leaders, Magee and van Helten’s mural concentrates in the value of hard work and carpet making. Here are some images of this stunning work of art.
Guido van Helten
Part visual artist, part anthropologist, Guido Van Helten, 29, is an Australian contemporary artist dedicated to paint large-scale, site-specific mural works. His subjects are black and white and sepia toned portraits, like old photographs that speak of the history and stories of the places and people he visits.
More about Guido on Facebook Website Instagram
Fintan Magee
Born in Lismore (Australia), Fintan Magee moved to Brisbane as a child and began drawing shortly after. In his early teens he was exposed to Brisbane’s graffiti culture and began painting on walls.
Moving away from traditional graffiti in recent years, his large-scale murals often inhabit the isolated, abandoned and broken corners of the city. Mixing surreal and figurative imagery his paintings are deeply integrated with the urban environment; they explore themes of waste, consumption, loss and transition and contain a sentimentality and softness influenced by children’s books.
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
