prayer gatherings twisted into homosexual orgies, birthday parties targeted for terrorist attack, and tattoos and body hair plucking construed as the latest in ultra-macho beauty makeovers. In devising her scenes of aberrant ceremony, Madini pinpoints the very essence of frustration, fervour, and inadequacy.

Appropriating the preconceptions of racial and gender difference as a departure point into the bizarre and surreal, Madini uses her position of 'other' to draft her own elaborate fantasies, detailing a riotous underworld of cliquey sect-like subterfuge. The motif of the birthday cake recurs in Madini's paintings as an emblem of masculine ego. The impotence of melting candles protracting to the ultimate conclusion of 'blow them out/blow them up', as pink gooey pastries become the signature trademark of her maverick suicide bombers.

Stylistically ranging from lush painterly expressionism to loose, almost comical line drawing, Madini conveys her politically controversial subject matter with a genuine innocence and empathy. Rendered in soft, pastel palettes, her figures are humanised with a sentimental goofiness that belies their zealous bravado. Whether engaging in torture via flatware, cowering from the golden shower of divine blessing, or assassinating chummy rivals, Madini's cohort are less dangerous than cringe-worthy; their fetishised violence rendered tragic and flaccid, contriving the phenomenon of male bonding an embarrassing and lovable spectacle.

Iranian-born painter who came to the United States at 10, is notable. Her works assert that the political is not only personal, painterly and painful but also deeply, affectingly comical and at times nearly abstract. In her small, lush paintings, bald, bearded, dark-skinned, seemingly Middle Eastern men make strange use of lighted birthday cakes. Machismo, homoeroticism, malice and friendship mingle volatilely, all spelled out in surprising detail (great shirts), given the cartoonish abandon with which Ms. Madani paints.

Read Entire Article about Artist Tala Madani paintings and artwork at The Saatchi-Gallery http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tala_madani.htm

View Tala Madani paintings, biography, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and resource of Tala Madani. View art online at The Saatchi Gallery - London contemporary art gallery. Tala Madani

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