afsaneh shri

Artist Statement

My work is a visual exploration of the fragile balance between poverty and excess, two parallel realities that coexist within the same world yet remain deeply disconnected.

Through two interconnected mixed-media paintings, I examine how human societies oscillate between deprivation and overconsumption. Rather than presenting these conditions as opposites, I treat them as reflections of one another—bound by systems of imbalance, perception, and silence.

In the first work, “poverty” is not only material absence, but also a visual language of erosion, fragmentation, and muted survival. In contrast, the second work expresses “excess” through accumulation, saturation, and visual overload—where abundance becomes its own form of distortion.

Although separated in subject, the two pieces are conceptually inseparable. Together, they form a dialogue about visibility and invisibility: what is seen, what is ignored, and what is normalized in contemporary life.

By using a mixed-media approach, I allow textures, layers, and contradictions to coexist—mirroring the instability of the subject itself. My intention is not to judge, but to reveal the quiet tension between these two worlds and invite the viewer to question their proximity to both.

Ultimately, the work reflects on how inequality is not only economic, but also perceptual: how we learn to see, ignore, or accept imbalance as part of reality.