I just fell in love with these paintings by Iranian artist Shohreh Mehran. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a whole lot of information on her. I was able to find more of these paintings but most interestingly, this artist statement.

« My working method is as follows: I shoot several photographs of a scene that has intrigued me (streets, street signs, buildings, or in the case of the works I’m submitting here, college students.) Some of these photographs are « documentary » and others are « staged » by me. I then manipulate these images in photoshop (ie. change the colors, the backgrounds, the composition of the image, etc.) and paint the resulting image on canvas. I often go back to the original image halfway through the painting process and rework it based on the insights I’ve had while painting. » -source

I find these portraits extremely poignant and emotionally charged though simple. I remember walking by them and feeling like the room suddenly got empty as if these pieces were the only thing I could look at. A very intimate moment, walking towards the paintings, trying to find the proper standing distance, feeling drawn and pushed away at the same time… Hypnotic.