Gazing upon Maryam Ayeen and Abbas Shahsavar’s illustrations of intimate couple scenes seems almost to intrude on their private world. There is a dark mood that lingers over Fall in dopamine 2020–21, which is comprised of a series of self-portraits of the duo in their apartment. In each work, the painted faces are rendered with a subtle fuzziness which contrasts with the clarity of the rest of the picture. The bare green walls and repetitive patterns of the golden tiles, whose flattened perspective is at odds with the figures in the scenes, creates a sense of claustrophobia. The tight physical limits of Ayeen and Shahsavar’s painted spaces mimic the confines of political and social rules in Iran, which can take their toll on the mental health of citizens. This is further emphasised by the title, Fall in dopamine, that refers to a depletion in the neural chemical that assists the brain to feel pleasure.

Desperate to escape the confines of their apartment, the characters in Fall in dopamine attempt to express their autonomy through using illegal recreational substances. They are seen creating wine; growing cacti to produce mescaline; or revealing an eye tattoo – a popular symbol for hallucinatory magic mushrooms. The use of mind-altering substances has rich historical precedent in Persian poetry, Sufi philosophy and the Zoroastrian faith, which document the use of wine, opium and mystical potions for the easing of troubles or communicating with otherworldly forces. Ayeen and Shahsavar not only draw on these texts as inspiration but also, through their erudite miniature paintings, point to the contemporary relevance of these philosophical and artistic lineages. In this way, the characters in Fall in dopamine could be viewed as mystics seeking new forms of knowledge.