A large-scale
portrait formed from the accumulation of individual figures, where a collective
image emerges from many bodies.
A public mural
developed in Tehran, informed in part by earlier exchanges with international
artists, including Craig Alan.
Public Mural Project – Tehran Municipality, Iran, January 2016
This work
approaches portraiture through accumulation rather than a single figure.
The image is
built from numerous small bodies, each moving in its own direction while
contributing to a larger form.
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- Leila Delfan
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- Leila Delfan
From a distance,
these dispersed figures come together as a recognizable face. Up close, the
image breaks apart into individual movements and interactions. What interested
me here was this shift in perception—between reading the image as one and as
many at the same time.
This approach
moves away from conventional realist portraiture, introducing a way of
constructing the image through distance, scale, and aggregation.
The project drew
wider attention, including a feature in El País, which addressed this change in
the visual language of murals in Iran.
Rather than
presenting a fixed portrait, the work remains open—shaped by the relationship
between the individual and the collective. The image is formed through
presence, movement, and the way it is seen.
35°42’04.4″N 51°23’13.5″E