"The Painter with the Biggest Balls"

VAHID SHARIFIAN interviewed by KIMBERLY HUNT January 2026 

I asked him directly the question that often hovers unspoken around artists who provoke discomfort.

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Do you care what people think of you?

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It’s a question that usually invites hedging. A moment to calibrate. A chance to soften the answer just enough to sound reasonable. When I asked Vahid Sharifian, none of that happened.

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“No,” he said. “I don’t care what they think.”

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There was no heat in it. No defensiveness. Just certainty. The kind that comes from someone who has already spent years testing the alternative and found it unnecessary.

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