Mehdi Ghadyanloo was recently invited in by the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy in Boston to paint his first mural in America. The prolific Tehran-based artist worked on the large 70 x 76 foot wall in Boston’s Dewey Square Park (also painted by Os Gemeos in 2012) over the course of tree weeks creating a piece he calls Spaces of Hope, featuring some of his signature surrealist imagery. The Iranian artist decided to paint a line of people holding balloons as they climb a helical staircase to the top where there is an opening in the ceiling where a much larger balloon is waiting to be released.
Ghadyanloo further states – “I want to project the utopias and dreams that are in my mind onto the city. In May of this year, I visited Boston and spent several days in the Greenway’s Dewey Square Park just observing the wall and the city and how people interacted with both of them. In the field of public art, your audience is the world, and all who see your art share communal feelings such as love, hope, and fear. Therefore, art that originates from these sources will work in cities anywhere in the world, be it Boston, Tehran, London, and anywhere else.”
Photo credit: David L. Ryan // Boston Globe.
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