Amir Khojasteh

Amir Khojasteh (b. 1988, Iran) is an Iranian painter and sculptor who lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. He paints figures, heads and landscapes in oil, often in thick impasto, and makes sculpture in bronze. His subjects are fear, power, violence and dictatorship, handled with dark humour.

Khojasteh studied graphic design at Marlik Art University, Noshahr, from 2007 to 2011. His paintings quote art history as often as politics. The Gloomiest Sunset in The World (2019) included Red Room (2018), a remake of Henri Matisse's Red Studio with his own paintings swapped in. The same show had The Master series (2018), in which Hitler, Lenin and Mao are stretched and distorted. Living in a Burning House (2024) added bronze heads of the mythical divs to paintings of mythical creatures whose forms echo Qajar-era painting. May the Tree No Longer Burn When I Wake (2026) is his first body of work made after leaving Iran. Its Garden Landscape paintings draw on Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows (1890), shown with the reclining figures of the Lying Man series.

His first solo show, When stung by a bee, Lie down and scream, was held at Mohsen Art Gallery, Tehran, in 2016. CARBON 12, Dubai, has given him four solo shows since 2019. Group shows include Visages, Lajevardi Foundation, Tehran (2016), Bahith, Gazelli Art House, London (2019) and New Lands, Arkas Sanat Alaçatı, Izmir (2024). Artforum reviewed his 2019 exhibition. His work is in the collection of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.