A1one (Persian: تنها) is the street name of a visual artist who started graffiti and street art in Iran especially on the walls of Tehran.[1] He was alone at that time so his nickname was Alone which then mutated into A1one. He started his street art project in 2003 and inspired his close friends at that time to also begin painting on the streets. Artists such as Elle,isba, K.T. and Magoi were the first people to join him in Tehran. He is one of the pioneers of the urban art scene in Middle East. With his public space art, he describes his view on the Iranian society and puts himself regularly in danger. When he began, it was a time when nobody even knew what Graffiti was, in his country. He has also been known and called as Iranian Banksy just because of his importance in the rise of street art and stencilling within Iranian for art lovers and ordinary people.
His unique urban art is his way to deal with the society and its social and political problems, and his works always have a universe of influences - everybody knows about the political problems in Iran: the demonstrations, the violence, the vote rigging and so on. You can imagine how dangerous it is to comment on these social and political issues over there, and you also can imagine how extremely dangerous it is to make politically street art right there.
the artist has also been working on Arabic Graffiti Style Design from 2003 and made one of the very first steps toward building a path for Graffiti style in islamic world.He has made a handful of the greatest Style walls with Arabic letter graffiti since 2004.[2]
'When I decided to do my painting on walls I bought some spray cans - at that time we had just some very low quality colors in Iran. My first work was a very simple work titled “searching for friends” painted on a wall right next to the Tehran-Karaj expressway late at night. It was a really frightening night for me… The next morning I got three calls from friends who recognized my style of painting. They were shocked to see my work on a public wall. My first stencil was a Munch's Scream Print on Art University walls and after that , experimented with many techniques and methods, but I continue with stencils, graffiti and sticker art.[3]
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A1ones artworks combine both, Persian calligraphy and Western graffiti. For the protest he scribbles about 800 pencil-soldiers in the streets of Tehran.also documented by many photographers and featured in Art Asia Pacific Magazine. A1one's art world is dynamic and made of many different styles. from portraits to calligraphy and funky characters which he mostly uses for his stickers.
He had been arrested several times and signed agreements with poice not to work in streets. One of them was when he tried to do a bombing on Iranian official artists forum Yard at 6 in the morning. The managiment of the Iranian artists forum did not understood his aim and stopped him and called the police ....
http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/graffiti-cops-a-spray/2008/07/31/1217097393985.html
http://zirzamin.se/?q=node/763
http://socialactive.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/graffitti-in-teheran-instigating-political-change/
http://pingmag.jp/2007/01/19/a1one-1st-generation-graffiti-in-iran/
http://www.underspray.com/a1one.html
http://zine.artcat.com/2008/07/interview.php
GROUP SHOWS (Selected)
SOLO SHOWS