Mahmoud ZENDEHROUDI
Né en 1943 en Iran, Zende -Mahmoud Zendehroudi- passe la majeure partie de sa vie à Téhéran.
Il expose quelques travaux lors de la 2ème Biennale de Téhéran en 1962, puis à l’Exposition Internationale de Téhéran en 1970. La « Tehran Gallery » organise sa première exposition personnelle en 1966.
Entré dans la carrière de journaliste au sortir du lycée, il peint « pour son plaisir ». Tout d’abord chroniqueur, puis producteur d’émissions radiophoniques, il devient journaliste-vedette à la télévision en 1969.
Zende quitte l’Iran en 1978, pour s’installer dans le Sud de la France. C’est à partir de cet exil qu’il se consacre entièrement à la peinture et commence une véritable carrière artistique.
La découverte du travail en relief lui ouvre la voie du collage, et lui permet de se libérer de l’influence des courants artistiques iraniens.
Ses œuvres, diffusées et acquises de par le monde, en particulier dans des musées, sont maintenant inclassables : mélange de toutes sortes de matériaux, collage, sculpture sur pâte à papier.
La calligraphie, érigée en Art Majeur, est vidée de tout sens ; seule reste la symbolique de l’écrit, une calligraphie magnifiée. Il marie la calligraphie –art séculaire et extrêmement codifié- à l’art plastique –art actuel et libre de toute règle.
Zende -Mahmoud Zendehroudi- was born in Iran in 1943, and lived in Tehran during the first part of his life.
He came from a modest, cultivated background and was the 4th child of a family of eight.
His mother's artistic sensibility had a great influence on him as a painter, and also on the rest of his brothers and sisters.
After leaving college, Zende became a journalist but never abandoned his early passion for painting. At first a radio chronicler, he then produced various radio programmes before becoming a well-known journalist on TV in 1969.
However, in 1962, he had already exposed some of his work during the 2nd Biennal Event in Tehran, and also in 1970 at the International Exhibition there. The "Tehran Gallery" organised his first private exhibition in 1969.
In 1978, Zende left Iran to settle in the south of France. After his exile and from this moment on, he was to begin a full- time career in painting.
His own discovery of a new way of painting with raised designs lead him to use 'collage' as a technique which has set him apart from more conventional iranian artistic movements.
It would be hard to put his work into a single category. He uses various materials and techniques, such as collage and sculpting wood pulp.
He has had many private exhibitions throughout the world : in Hong-Kong, the USA and Europe, to name a few places, and many patrons of the arts have purchased his paintings to form private collections, in Cyprus, Canada, France, Iran, Germany, Switzerland, U.S.A, Dubaï.
His work also holds a large place in collections of limited editions of beautiful illustrated books published by "Fata Morgana" and "La bibliothèque du Lion".