Flashlight in Mouth

"'Flashlight in Mouth' is one of a suite of small canvases by Tala Madani on the subject of light and dark. Here, light assumes the literal form of a flashlight held against the mouths of men and functions as a source of projection, a microphone that both amplifies and stifles speech. The subject matter is in playful tension with the formal qualities of the painting and its modulations from luminescence to velvet opacity, and from illuminated illustration to mute abstraction.
Madani’s oeuvre is nourished by a tradition that combines the graphic flourish and volubility of Persian calligraphy and traditional coffee house painting from her native Iran, social realism and American post-war abstraction. Like Paula Rego, who Madani has cited as an influence, the artist also employs satire and black humour. Childhood scenes linked to eschatological and sexual experimentation, or grotesque representations of adult men physically involved in violent, incomprehensible situations, are frequent in her work. Her paintings are an irresistible parody of the ways in which representation is directed and framed, adopting absurdity as the perfect cover for content that resists censorship and betrayal through pictorial and narrative processes."