About Koorosh Nejad

My art is my reflection on mythology, symbols, signs, characters, and other cultural elements of ancient civilizations. I research a particular culture first, then pick those elements I wish to use in the artwork, embed a dominant shape in the middle, add my own spin that is mainly inspired by cubism, do the details, then complete the painting.

I am passionate to create work that reflects my love of the source material I work from. The ancient cultures and their untold stories, various mystery traditions, and the ever-unfolding and often mystical experience of being alive in a world that is apparently material, immaterial, and prone to all manner of interesting archetypal expressions and wonderments.

Artist Statement

Artist Portfolio

About the Art of Symbols

Art of Symbols is a fashion in illustrating cultures in their symbols and in abstract cubism. Koorosh Nejad's designs demonstrate the fear, love, hope, passion, and feelings of different cultures in symbols. It is a new angle to the art of symbols. The design often includes symbols, alphabets, signs, and other figurative shapes and characters of a specific culture.

The commission began in 2020 and has already created several artworks and created a collection of the Art of Symbols which is in black and white, and a colorful collection names Symbols in Color. See RRoot collection on Saatchi Gallery.

Question and Answer With Koorosh Nejad

1. What makes RRoot collection different?

A. In my opinion, the RRoot collection is unique in many ways. To start, it is black and white; this is done intentionally to remove the element of color away from the abstract, so the content (symbols) can be seen plain, naked, and simple. Each of RRoot's paintings has a story to share, the story of a nation, that in fact is very similar to our present story in 2020. A world with hope, fear, love, hate, rivalry, and so on. So each piece tells you its own unique story that the audience can relate to.

2. What are the figures on RRoot designs?

A. The figures and characters in my paintings are symbols; that's why I call RRoot the Art of Symbols. The symbols are coming from our history, our past. Some are ancient alphabets such as those from Mayans who had character language, some are alphabets such as gamma, alpha, and omega that you see in The Infinity, that come from ancient Greece, and some are symbols of gods, such as the ones in The Life that come from ancient Egypt.

3. Is your art sad, or does it imply anger?

A. Hahaha maybe it looks that way because I mix faces and facial elements from cubism, and perhaps the original collection that is in black and white makes it a bit serious, but I wouldn't call them sad or angry. On the other hand, my life has had its ups and downs; I have seen a revolution and social unrest, and 8-years war where I lost my father, 2 times immigration, and a dramatic divorce in between, so I guess that some of that spills over my art. Personality-wise I am a hopeful and positive person, a "why not?" type person, but perhaps life has made me a bit serious.

4. How do you name these pieces?

A. Each of the RRoot paintings represents a nation through the illustration of their symbols. The work starts with some research about the history of the culture and specifically about how they used to communicate including their symbols. Through the process of creating the piece often I come up with a name.

5. What inspired you to make the Art of Symbols?

A. I loved ancient civilizations, history, and cubism since I was a child, so I literally combined them all together, and here is RRoot Art.

6. How did you pick these ancient nations to paint about?

A. Since my childhood, I was fascinated by the history of ancient civilizations. So I was a bit familiar with the history of ancient Egypt, Greece, a bit of Romans, and Mayans. I started paintings RRoot paintings with the ones that I knew before then I added more.

7. How many pieces of Art of Symbols do you plan to paint?

A. The initial plan was to create seven paintings under RRoot collection. I might expand this to 10 or even beyond. The more I work on this commission the more I am connected to it. On the other hand, I miss colors, so I'm not sure, for now, the plan is 7 paintings.

8. Whom do you intend to communicate with your art?

A. My audience is the general public, all ages, and all cultures.

9. What is the message that you intend to pass to the audience through RRoot art?

A. I love it when people text me that the more they look at RRoot paintings the more figures and characters they see. It is a unique art that engages the audience, like a puzzle, but beautiful and entertaining. However, the message that I intend to pass on to the audience and the community is that after thousands of years of civilization and despite that we think we have different cultures and backgrounds, and by that I mean, skin color, customs, language, religion, etc. we don't have different roots. In fact, we all have one single root. So the message is equality, fairness, appreciation (of each other), unity, balance, understanding, and peace. I want the audience to stare at RRoot paintings and think oh my got, these figures are funny, are sad, are arrogant, are kind, caring,.... these figures are us. I want the audience to reflect on these figures and be reminded that we are all similar so need to have more appreciation for each other.

10. What style are your paintings?

A. They are abstract art, some call them cubism; yes could be defined as cubism too. Cubism art has a much broader scope in 2020 than when it was initially formed.

11. Where is your studio?

A. At the moment I am working out of my studio in London, UK.

12. Koorosh, where are you from?

A. Hum... a world citizen really, a Canadian citizen with Persian roots, lived in several countries and now settled in London; well, for now, you never know.

Summer 2020, London, U.K.

Follow Koorosh on social media: RRoot on Facebook, RRoot on Instagram

TAGS: #RRoot #Art #Abstract #ExpressionistArt #LargeCanvas #LargePainting #ArtofSymbols #KooroshNejad #Cubist #ModernArt #LargeWallArt