Jelly Beans & Nostalgia

Nostalgia. Sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. But what if this sweet, warm, and fuzzy feeling was exploited by world leaders, and used as a tool to manipulate the masses?

That’s what Afshin Naghouni, a London-based Iranian-born British visual artist, believes has been happening around the world, with increasingly terrifying consequences. Through the rhetoric of the “good old days”, and an insistence on returning to the heyday of a “glorious” past, Afshin believes that some world leaders are tugging on nations’ collective nostalgic heartstrings to further their own agendas, and he explores this in his art.

Reporter Sahar Zand visits Afshin’s studio in West London to find out how, for his new collection, the artist will paint this “collective nostalgic feeling” for a past we don’t remember correctly or haven’t personally experienced, drawn in our head by some external force. Having had to adapt and relearn how to paint after a life-changing accident, and vowing never to reveal what exactly each piece is depicting, mystery and the overcoming of adversity exist alongside imagined nostalgia as vital components in his vivid and evocative artworks.

January 2022   ·   In The Studio