Equity In Art

As a graduate student, Tavakoli started exploring his identity through art beginning with his Middle Eastern roots.

He was fascinated by Iranians of his generation who were out in the streets protesting. This led him to research Iran’s recent history going back to the 1979 Revolution.

Tavakoli learned that many of Iran’s political protests started over food prices for everyday items like bread and eggs, which gave him an idea.

“I would take carton after carton of eggs… I would get like a whole square of eggs. Twenty four eggs in a square and lay that down and then put a piece of lavash, which is Iranian bread or Persian Middle Eastern bread, on top of that,” he said.

He created a tower of eggs and bread standing four feet high that quickly collapsed in the school’s gallery, crushing many of the raw eggs on the floor in what he describes as an, “amazingly beautiful way.”

“This piece ended up getting a lot of attention within the school. I think more the shock, the smell, the sulfur, the eggs… I had teachers who really didn't know who I was, kind of knowing who I was from that point,” he said.

Tavakoli in turn started to know and understand how his Iranian American and African American heritage would influence his art going forward.

These works would lead to Tavakoli’s KSU graduate thesis, “A Burning Silence.”

When asked if he considers himself an artist of color Tavakoli brings up the late African American portrait painter Barkley L. Hendricks.

“I read something of [his] that said something like, ‘just being Black and making art is political.’ That’s just a fact so you might as well lean into it,” Tavakoli said.

He began exploring his African American roots by creating a series about protests in the NFL.

Growing up a football fan, Tavakoli was inspired by players like Colin Kaepernick, known for taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in America.

Tavakoli’s “Take a Knee" series is a collection of collages where the protesting players are digitally edited alongside the Black victims of police brutality who inspired their protests.

“Really, each city, each sports team, probably has one person in that city that's been murdered by the police… So I was able to take a person like Eric Garner, who was killed in New York, and actually take the team, both NFL teams that are protesting these deaths and put them on the same field together, really show that, like the Jets, the Giants and this gentle giant, Eric Garner, can all be on the same field,” he said.

He continued the series with Freddie Gray and the Baltimore Ravens, and Alton Sterling and the New Orleans Saints. Tavakoli says someday he may create a work about the death of Cleveland’s Tamir Rice but admits the ongoing series has taken a toll on his psyche.

“These works take hours. You're layering… you're physically looking at a dead child for hours… I think I kind of started to pull away from that work,” he said. “There has to be a way to tell these stories without being so shocking or without putting that additional stress on myself.”

In the spring of 2020, George Floyd’s death and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests across the nation sparked a new creative fire in Tavakoli.

However, because his asthma makes him a high risk for COVID-19, Tavakoli did not feel safe joining the protests on the city streets.

“So, it's like, ‘How do I make something or an answer, add something to this conversation?’” Tavakoli said.

He began manipulating news images of the protests and specifically images of police. These new works evolved into the series "Over Policing." Because of their immediacy, rather than waiting for a gallery show, Tavakoli posted the pieces right to Instagram.

“I wanted to be quick and out there if I saw something happening in the news that was responding to it that day. I got forced to make some things quickly,” he said.

The metaphor of a large body of water added another emotional layer of meaning to a set of pieces called "Sea of Cops."

“I'm from Euclid. We see the lake, we see water, you know, the turbulence… And I start seeing these relationships with the police. It's like they always tell you: Respect the water. The water's dangerous. The water can capture you at any time. You can drown, you can get swept in a tide… But as a young Black male, you're always told: Respect the police. Be careful, watch out,” he said.

While “Sea of Cops” is striking and disturbing, there’s an additional element of ironic beauty.

“I'm always wondering, ‘Can you sell something that's disturbing or can you sell something that doesn't have that layer of beauty?’” Tavakoli said. “It's something I'm navigating, but I was definitely conscious of, ‘How can I make this look interesting?’… There's always the horizon line. The horizon line is such a significant thing for the lake and water and the beauty of [it].”

Tavakoli displayed his "Over Policing" series at Heights Arts gallery in early 2021. One of the “Sea of Cops” works was Tavakoli’s first piece to sell from that exhibition.