C3, also known as C3naa, is a pseudonymous Iranian artist based in Tehran whose geometric, minimalist digital works document daily life and protest under the Islamic Republic.,,His pieces unfold inside a single fictional universe he calls Dystopia, populated by characters called Dystopians, some of whom are Rebels, Outsiders or Dead.,
C3 began painting as a child and worked for years in acrylic on canvas.Around 2018 he developed his current style and introduced the Dystopians, characters with near-emotionless faces and geometric, cone-shaped bodies.,As a student he took part in Iran's 2009 Green Movement protests and designed covers for a political magazine.He has continued to make street graffiti against the government. He moved into digital art after acquiring an iPad in late 2021.His first NFT was Throne of Blood, a piece he had painted in 2019 during the mass protests known as Bloody November.,He mints his work on Tezos.He keeps his identity anonymous, a precaution he has described as a matter of safety rather than choice.
C3's visual language draws on dystopian literature, including George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and on the red, black and white palette of totalitarian propaganda posters. In The Rebel Queen, he casts a female protagonist in the mould of Atwood's novel to represent Iranian women protesting for their rights. His Dystracts series strips his imagery down to bare brushstrokes and colour. One entry, Blood of my Blood, depicts a mass execution by firing squad in Iran's Kurdistan province from the shooters' point of view. In the more personal piece Museum of Innocence, he combined childhood memories, his mother, public executions and the killing of the passengers of flight PS752 by the IRGC into a single self-documentary work.
