Aida Chehrehgosha

Joined Artfinder: Sept. 2020

Artworks for sale: 41

Sweden

Updates from Aida Chehrehgosha's studio

  • Behind the scenes "The mask"

    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    The mask I made of my own face in different stages of development. I made one mask made of latex which was used for closer work and 200 masks of plastic made for wider images with a lot of extras. It took one summer to do them all. See video below of behind the scenes from this shoot. I used the mask on both the projects "Selfportrait" and "You're The Ones Too Blame"

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    The mask I made of my own face in different stages of development. I made one mask made of latex which was used for closer work and 200 masks of plastic made for wider images with a lot of extras. It took one summer to do them all. See video below of behind the scenes from this shoot. I used the mask on both the projects "Selfportrait" and "You're The Ones Too Blame"

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    The mask I made of my own face in different stages of development. I made one mask made of latex which was used for closer work and 200 masks of plastic made for wider images with a lot of extras. It took one summer to do them all. See video below of behind the scenes from this shoot. I used the mask on both the projects "Selfportrait" and "You're The Ones Too Blame"

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    Behind the scenes "The mask"

    The mask I made of my own face in different stages of development. I made one mask made of latex which was used for closer work and 200 masks of plastic made for wider images with a lot of extras. It took one summer to do them all. See video below of behind the scenes from this shoot. I used the mask on both the projects "Selfportrait" and "You're The Ones Too Blame"

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    See video for extensive information

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    See video for extensive information

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    See video for extensive information

    04 September 2020
    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    Behind the scenes Selfportrait 2008

    See video for extensive information.

    04 September 2020

    Behind the scenes on "You're The Ones Too Blame" 2011

    You’re the ones to blame was a project who dealt with obsessive thoughts and nightmares. I had reaccuring thoughts about hurting my loved ones and get hurt myself. I’ve always had a thing for knives. Whenever I saw a knife a brief thought entered my mind that I would pick up that knife and hurt someone with it. It never happened of course but the thought itself was enough for making me feel repulsed. This film shows one of the shooting days for this project when we had a big team and some featured extras. I work in both the art world and the commercial world. So a lot of the principals I use in commercial photography I bring in to my art projects. And also a lot of my usual team members from the commercial world helps me with my art. My husband is a cinematographer and we have been working together for almost 20 years and have developed a certain look together. This brings a certain level of quality that I want to maintain in my photographs. Its not important for me who does what in the process. I have an idea that I want to transform in some way and how that is done is unimportant for me. At some times don’t even hold the camera myself. I work more as a film director which controls the bigger picture but doesn’t necessarily do all the things a regular photographer does. I don’t actually see myself as a photographer. I see myself as a performance artist who re-enacts my worst thoughts and step inside of them to confront them. Thats why it’s important to have as much as possible on set with me. Real knives (of course with the edges being blank), blood, smoke. Everything needs to be there to make the experience as close to the one in my head as possible. This was the first project were I used actors instead of my own family as models. This meant I could take the ideas even further. We plan everything as thorough as we can so we are able to improvise on set. But this means we can be very effective on set. On this particular day we took 12 pictures of which 8 where used in the final exhibition.

    04 September 2020

    Behind the scenes of "Selfportrait" 2008

    For a couple of years I had photographed my own family as a revenge for things that had happened in my childhood. My hate towards my parents was enormous this period. I photographed my parents as dead corps and exhibited in art gallerys. Around the time I made this picture I had enormous struggles with guilt and self hate for what I had done to my parents. It felt like a war raging in my own head. I got this image in my head that looked like an old battlefield painting with 200 versions of me fighting against each other. I made a plastic mask of my own face and spent a summer mass producing it and painting it and finally gathered 200 people to fight in a field. The end result is a version of how my mental health was at the time. Turmoil, chaos and violence. The shoot itself was one of my most valuable lessons I ever had. For years I considered this shoot my biggest failure ever. I had contacted over 200 persons to come to this shoot and instructed them to wear only black cloths. We were shooting on a big field quite a bit outside stockholm. So I worked with some friends of mine to act as responsible for the logistics and as production leaders. We rented buses to bring all the extras to this remote location. When they finally showed up my heart sank to the floor. Out of the 200 that had signed up only 50 people showed up. Looking back at it now I can laugh and see why they didn’t show up. It was a sunday morning and it was freezing. Today maybe even I wouldn’t show up! But at the time I was totally devastated. So when we actually started shooting my mind had almost blacked out. I didn’t even know what we were doing there. It took a long time before I finally snapped out of it and started getting in to the flow. In the end we got quite a few good images but not one that worked completely. So I had to digitally merge different exposures together. This was the first time I had ever done this and it felt like a complete failure. A real photographer doesn’t manipulate their images was what I had learned. However after this experience I realised that using the modern tools that is available isn’t cheating. It just elevates your art to something bigger. You are an artist to try to tell a inner story or to make people feel something unexplainable. Which tools you use to express this is irrelevant. Now when I shoot I try to go as far as I possible can to get everything in the camera but I can also relax and find comfort in that I can add the extra touch afterwards if the situation calls for it. After this I also learned that you can only plan to a certain degree. Be as prepared as you possibly can but then embrace the happy accidents and the unpredictable works of nature. Go with the flow and don’t try to work against something. The shoot itself was one of my most valuable lessons I ever had. For years I considered this shoot my biggest failure ever. I had contacted over 200 persons to come to this shoot and instructed them to wear only black cloths. We were shooting on a big field quite a bit outside stockholm. So I worked with some friends of mine to act as responsible for the logistics and as production leaders. We rented buses to bring all the extras to this remote location.

    04 September 2020

    Behind the scenes on "What Comes Around Goes Around" From the series "You're The Ones to Blame" 2011

    This shoot was one of the biggest in terms of extras I had done in quite sometime. We shot two setups that day. But the first image never made it to the project. It had a lot to do with the light. We had a very sunny day and I don't like sunlight. I love it in real life but don't like it in my images. So we waited until the sun went down behind the horizon before we took the shot with the long line of people. I am forever grateful for all the extras and the crew that helped me that day and stayed on to wait for the sun to set. The image turned out exactly how I wanted it. Someone is being punished for what they have done. But no one knows what the crime is and no one knows who the executioners really are. Are they the same?

    04 September 2020