Hannah Moghbel grew up as a German-Iranian immigrant in the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania. Her work explores themes of lust, love and feminine identity through hyper-realistic oil paintings. She currently lives and works in Colorado Springs, CO.
They say your eyes are the window to your soul, and my soul was hungry. (No. 6)Oil on Canvas27x48 inches2015
Since 2006 I have been painting images of fruit as a way to explore ideas about the inner world of desire, longing, and infatuation. I have always felt that infatuation contains an element of spiritual, as it is a yearning for something greater, something beyond ourselves. Infatuation usually is about the way someone else makes us feel. We catch a glimmer of some ideal version of ourselves reflected in the beloved. The object of our affection is really serving as a sort of mirror, so that we can fall in love with our higher selves.
Growing up, I constantly had crushes. I was taught that divine love is perfect, and that human love is naturally flawed. The way in which our minds can romanticize and idealize a certain exchange, or significant moment fascinates me. Only in the vacuum of our minds can such perfection exist in a perpetual state. My paintings immortalize fleeting moments through the allegory of fruit.
