Shahin Afrassiabi
FRANCIS - Paintings Drawings Sculptures, 2023-2025

13 FEB until 28 MAR 2026
Opening – 13 FEB 2026, 6-9 pm

Opening on Friday, Feburary 13, 2026, the exhibition presents a large scale installation of more than 70 paintings and three sculptures, all based on the same photograph of Francis Bacon, taken in 1976 by Francis Goodman. The photograph is currently held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Through repitition, Afrassiabi uses a single image to test painting as a mode of exploration. Through repetition, the artist deconstructs Bacon’s image and, in doing so, undermines the authority of the original photograph. While the gesture can be read as a form of homage, it simultaneously subjects Bacon to the forces of form, color, and brushwork, rendering him a figure shaped and destabilized by painterly means.

Shahin Afrassiabi holds an MFA from Goldsmiths College in London and has exhibited internationally, including at Soy Capitán, Whitechapel Gallery, ICA London, Kunsthalle Exnergasse and Rib Rotterdam. Born in Tehran in 1963, Afrassiabi lives and works between Spain and London.