Davood Roostaei

Iranian - American artist, Davood Roostaei, has been influenced by three major strands of contemporary art. The first one, Mystical Realism, he was born into in Iran; the second, Surrealism, when training and establishing a career in Germany, and the third, performance art, made popular in America, in the 21st century, as it was elsewhere. In 1987 from these strands he created a new technique and a way of thinking which he called Cryptorealism, which he has developed into an art movement. Roostaei was born in Malayer, Iran on October 12, 1959, moved to Germany in 1984, and then Los Angeles in 2000. A painter, he works in both oils and acrylics, and while most of his oeuvre is made up of paintings he also sculpts and creates drawings. Cryptorealism is his style; painting with his fingers is the way he executes it. He is represented by various galleries internationally.