How Far Can a Portrait Remain a Portrait
How far can a portrait remain a portrait?” is the question that Khashayar Farhat posed to audiences through his distinctive works in his first solo exhibition at Mojdeh Art Gallery. The exhibition was held from December 19, 2025 to January 2, 2026.
In this collection, portrait is an excuse for me to break the framework. These portraits are not meant to represent a face or claim to be real. Painting and sculpture are intertwined, just like the mind and emotion that are disrupted when confronted with a human face. In this way, portrait is a game with boundaries for me, boundaries that are suspended in my works. In a way that they no longer know where they belong, just like us in today’s world where we don’t know exactly where we stand and which dimension of ourselves is more real. I didn’t want my portraits to be cultured, with no classical light shining on them, no thoughtful gestures, no controlled smiles. These portraits are for today’s world. I just watched to see how far a portrait could escape itself and still remain a portrait? So if you didn’t find any eyes or mouths in some of them; Don't worry, they're also still looking for them!
Ultimately, this collection is an attempt to approach the moment when the portrait is not yet formed but is present. Perhaps the true face is what is not yet finished, and perhaps this incompleteness is its true form.
Khashayar Farhat / December 2025
