Ashkan’s work is an exploration of why we do the things we do through the medium of art. His work is dark, provocative and beautiful . We interviewed him to find out what inspires him and why he chose the art life.

To begin at the beginning. I read you fled Shiraz/Iran at a very young age and made your home in the Netherlands. Do you think that time in your life (if you recall it at all) made an impact on you as an artist? If so, how?

I do remember parts of my time living in Iran during the war. Some parts I remember clearly and some parts are just a blur. I left Iran with my family when I was 7 years old. It’s really difficult to say exactly how that time has affected me. And it took me years to understand and to be able to give it a place in my life. Through the years I have created so many projects about so many different subjects but never anything personal. That was until couple of years back where I decided that I want to delve deeper into my own past. And in the process maybe understand what kind of effects it had on me as a child.

And that's how the project Red Forest started. The title was a reference to the complex vein and nerve system in our brain (where we keep our memories) and secondly a 10-square-kilometer forest area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (scientist thought that after the accident the forest would die out but they were wrong. Life came back and adjusted)

I have always used my art to understand life and the project Red Forest helped me to understand myself better.

When did you first realise that creativity was going to be your chosen path in life?

On of my earliest memories in Iran was that I was drawing. I always enjoyed creating on my own. There wasn't a clear moment in my life that I knew exactly that I wanted to be an artist. It happened slowly over time. At some point there was just no other option than the art life.

Some artists are self-taught, and others go to art school. Did you find art school beneficial to your practice as an artist?

Absolutely! Art school was amazing. First year I almost got kicked out because I was so much stuck in my own world but after that when I got my shit together I started opening my eyes more and discovering new ways to express myself through art.

Did you grow up in a creative household? Was there encouragement from your family?

My mom was always encouraging me to draw when I was a kid but that was probably the only period in my life that my parents encouraged me. They weren’t against it that I wanted to go to the art school; they just didn’t believed that it could have a future for me.

Who or what would you say are your main influences that have inspired you over the years?

During my time in the art school I got exposed to so many different artist. I discovered so many different expressions in art, movies, literature. I fell in LOVE with movies (Bergman, Pasolini, Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky just to name a few classic directors) and through the years even used movies as an inspiration for several different projects. My favourite movie of all time that I have probably watched 15 times or so is Possession (1981) from director Andrzej Zulawski. This movie is amazing. There is a 3 minutes scene in this movie where the lead actress (Isabelle Adjani) goes insane in a metro station. That scene is just pure madness. It doesn't matter how many times I have seen it. It shakes me to my core every time.

What attracted you to create collage work over any other medium?

I used to draw and paint a lot before I discovered collage. Painting and drawing was fun and to this day I sometimes draw or paint to make sketches or plans for my collage projects. But every time I used to paint I felt blocked somehow. As if I couldn't get the picture in my head on the canvas. It was always a distorted version.

With collage I discovered that the results are instant. I felt more in control in what I was doing. Also I experimented with digital and analog collages for a while. I noticed that the work got much stronger when done by hand then for example in Photoshop. Photoshop takes away all the beautiful accidents that analog collage delivers.

When you begin a piece of work, do you have an initial idea or do you just start and let yourself by guided?

It’s always different and organic. Sometimes a poem or a picture starts a whole project. Or a movie or an painting. I usually follow the voices in my head, they usually come up with the best ideas hahaha

Do you have any projects or works coming up?

Almost finished a project about masks and still working on some other collage projects that will be released next year.

You can find his work on his site HERE