Perrotin is pleased to present Paradise Opens Tomorrow, the first solo exhibition by Mehdi Ghadyanloo, in Seoul.
November 5– December 24, 2026
Grounded in geometric structures and minimalist spaces, Ghadyanloo has long addressed themes of isolation, solidarity, freedom, and control. Labyrinthine boxes, ladders, floating balloons, and playground rides on his canvases capture fleeting moments where stark reality intersects with dreamlike narrative, fluidly crossing the thresholds between despair and salvation, repression and play. Through highly restrained compositions and trompe-l'œil techniques, the artist simultaneously manifests the visual tension and poetic lyricism of painting, offering an evocative metaphor for the universal human condition in an era of uncertainty.
His colossal murals have transformed over a hundred concrete façades into signature trompe l’oeil scenes: playful, serene, sometimes uncanny. After the 1979 revolution, Iranian authorities organized the production of public murals, many of which now depict revolutionary scenes, fallen martyrs, and anti-western messaging. Ghadyanloo’s muralist language is singular and recognizable: eschewing the typical spectacular propaganda imagery and hagiographic portraits, he prefers wide-angle landscapes that quietly subvert existing architectural and environmental elements, like daydreams intentionally anchored to blueprints.
Paradise Opens Tomorrow places us squarely in the hotspot. It centers around new hybrids of Ghadyanloo’s signature playgrounds with plastic-fantastic animal avatars and his recent, foreboding element of rising water. There is a slender, powder-pink rabbit-human, somehow evocative of the six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, with a spiral slide protruding from its chest. Another rabbit’s cartoonish fingers hold up a multicolored slide composed of cheap plastic units whose rainbow hues are reflected in the rabbit’s ears. A submarine-like green-grey bear rears up as his insides spill from his torso, cascading earthward in an array of ladders and twirling slides.
Finally, an oversize pink dog towers over a tiered playground; stairs lead directly into its groin, from which one can slide down its hollow limbs. In the last three works a few inches of water rise from the ground, effectively rendering the playgrounds death traps. In fact, the motif of animals and the flood harks back to one of Ghadyanloo’s earlier murals on a four-storey Tehran residential building. A giraffe’s lower half is submerged in water while its neck stretches toward a skylight; perched on its head are two men who are just able to reach the aperture.