| a brief introduction |
...a big brutalist structure standing in a remote arctic surrounding, red spheres secretly hovering in the midst of the forest, a single tiny red cubicle surrounded by thousands of dark cubicles in a vast structural landscape, walls, corners, dark stairways, acid burned self-portraits, …
The endless search for identity and self is what occupies and motivates the artist’s visual journey.
Aljoscha Farassat is an Austrian born painter who lives and works in New York City since 2008.
Born stateless was Aljoscha Farassat’s first experience of not belonging. His mother is Austrian, his father, an Iranian who had his own struggles giving up his national identity after the Islamic revolution in 78 by exiling his country.
For the first 17 years of Aljoscha Farassat’s life he had no citizenship, no passport of any kind. He could not travel nor leave the country he did not belong to… at least in an official sense. In that sense he was neither a native nor an immigrant.
Looking different than most Austrians was another indication of not belonging. An immediate sense of “different” was what he encountered with his fellow non-countrymen daily.
“The responsibility in my creative endeavors is to pose a question not to answer one”
At the age of 17, after legal battles, Austria was obligated by law to adopt this unwanted child. However it was too late. Not belonging has become the artist’s national identity… his own exile so to speak.
This nurtured his creative playing field. A blessing of sorts that there are no boundaries or frontiers in the artistic experience. There are no such restraints as national pride or heritage, intolerance of the other or the misfit.
By the age of 28 the artist packed his bags and left for New York. A City where not belonging is to belong