Peybak — Abra-chah, The Well of Abrakan — Galerie G-P & N Vallois — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 10 → February 22, 2020

The Iranian duo Peybak, Peyman Barabadi and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi, returns for a third solo show at Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois and continues to tell us stories depicted through their two pairs of hands. Following Abrakan (Birth) in 2015 and Abrakan “Sparkle” in 2017, the artists lead us today into the depths of the earth with the central figure of the well, Abra-Chah in Farsi, around which all sorts of peculiar creatures will gravitate and individualize themselves.

The small people of Peybak’s works are humanized over time, they indulge in many enigmatic activities in the middle of a twilight desert. At the heart of this mystical landscape of deep ochres and blues, the cryptic figures are detailed, unveiling their faces, their looks and their know-how. In the many scenes with elaborate frames, the creatures dance, hunt, fight, just as much as they peacefully and quietly gather themselves. Peybak reveals a dreamlike civilization whose paintings, scepters and notebooks are archaeological remains.

As the ancestors still relate, Peybak tells us: “In a barren place at the westernmost point from the eastern reaches, far from the light of the sun, there is a bottomless well named “Abra-Chah”; no one can venture into its depths. When the sun rises, the howls and cries of angels, demons and wild beasts, farm animals and men are heard followed by a foul stench. As the hours go by, the Abrakans gather around the well and pray, confide in it and treat the well as a person in its own right… By the end of the day and at the beginning of the night, the moon rises from this well and illuminates for miles around. Under this light, they tell their secrets to the well. A shrub grows inside the abyss and from its branches, the Abrakans shape the sticks that help them clear their passage on dark and unknown paths”.

Peybak’s world can put us in a hypnotic state, it takes us without warning, and it moves us. Abrakan is our ancestralism, our archaism: We are Abrakan.