Manzur Kargar

Born in Kabul/Afghanistan I moved to Germany at the age of five, and grew up in West Berlin. I studied painting at the HBK in Braunschweig and at the UdK in Berlin. Since 1992, Berlin has been my home and my studio, interrupted by longer stays in Los Angeles and New York. I began with what magnetically drew me as a young painter: antiquity. Hellenistic sculpture, myth, grand narrative gestures. Over time, my gaze shifted, because today’s gods no longer hang in temples. They smile at us from magazine covers, billboards, and screens. This is the imagery that fascinates me: seductive, flawless, always a little too perfect. I lift these figures out of their original context, place them in new, sometimes unsettling scenes, and paint them in hyperrealistic oil. The result feels familiar and disorienting at once. My working method brings old and new together. Each piece begins as a digital collage and ends as a painting built up in many layers with the greatest care. I am drawn to the tens