Kian Ghassemi
Kian Ghassemi builds creatures that shimmer with something broken, something healing. They are myth, future, softness, and armor — all at once. His worlds aren’t just painted — they’re coded, haunted, conjured like signals sent from a parallel self. Each figure he draws seems to have already lived a thousand lives. They carry a presence — quiet, strange, charged. We talked to him from inside the echo — about cyborg unicorns, spiritual oases, and what it means to draw a myth from the future.
When you create bodies — are you building others, or reconstructing fragments of your own?
I have a complicated relationship with my body. With my art I tried to get over that by creating bodies that felt similar to mine. If I would appreciate the artwork that was created, I felt that also my body could be appreciated. Recently that has shifted though, as I try to see the world through other bodies - but my body is my only vessel in this reality, so I think I will never lose that perspective.
Why do your characters always look like they’ve survived something — but also like they’re ready to protect us / make war?
Perfection is a dangerous goal, so I try to create imperfection. We’ve all been through so many things and I don’t think being complete is really normal. Something like a prosthetic can quickly become a metaphor of a war we’ve been fighting inside and make you feel like these characters already have a story to tell. Still the most honest answer is that I’ve always been obsessed with Science-Fiction and Fantasy Movies, and concepts like a cyborg unicorn just make me really happy.
What is a beautiful creature for you, something we’ve never seen before or something we forgot in another timeline?
Uniqueness is the most precious and admirable thing in the world to me. But both of those things sound beautiful to me. Maybe I try to do both at once.
Cables. Armor. Extensions. Do you think machines dream of softness, are they just shields for something more fragile?
Technology is my armor. It makes me stronger, inspires me and can bring me peace. So maybe I am the softness the machines dream of, the fragility they shield. Together we can be something new and whole.
Do you think images can heal? Like… silently. Like a faded dream.
I definitely hope to not create images of eternal struggle and pain but rather that they are frozen in a moment of serenity and recovery, that I can always access. So yes I believe images can heal. I choose to believe they can.
Your figures look like they’ve been coded into a myth — like avatars from a past-future. Is drawing a way to hack reality or maybe to spawn alternatives.
You really clocked me with this question. My goal is always to create myths from the future. Like a fairytale that would be told in a thousand years, or something recovered by a future civilization.
At the same time I think my work tries to create its own timeline and universe. It's like a safe space for me where time doesn’t exist and I can just be exactly myself. So maybe I am sending transmission between this realm and the one I created in my mind.
If someone gave you an empty terrain on a distant planet — what would you install first? A rave? A creature? A gate? Or just… a soft silence
I think first I would need an oasis. Like a space of spirituality and individuality without conflict. I think that would be cool to be the heart of all the craziness that comes later.
What do you believe in? Not god maybe. But like… something quiet.
I believe in sentience. The idea that we are the universe waking up and experiencing itself. That nature is the goddess around us in every moment. I believe that art is the point of life, in whatever shape that might be.