Invasion of the Mind by Hamed Ataei

Every one of us spends our lives in two worlds simultaneously. One physical and tangible and the other a world created in our minds. This world of our minds is molded by the conditions we live in and the people we interact with. Our real-world interactions and experiences don’t cease to exist in this abstract world of our minds. Instead, they continue to expand and swell till we are detached from the present.

With "Invasion of the Mind", I intend to depict such a state of mind in the person seen sitting in the middle of the painting. To better convey the impalpable aspect of this world, I excluded the shadows cast on her by the other individuals seen in the painting. Seen at the top left of the painting are two hands taken from “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David, and “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci. My intention for choosing these specific features from two of the greatest painters is to show the eternal aspect of this elusive world and the influence of our predecessors on our ideas and beliefs. With the hand seen at the top right corner of the painting which belongs to the main subject I intended to portray that the best person we can truly count on is ourself. There is another vague portrait of the main subject of the painting behind her. With this feature I intended to demonstrate how the connection between us and our core existence breaks when our inner self closes her eyes. This is the moment when the invasion of the mind begins.