Featuring bold, bright colours and striking patterns created by combining painted acrylic with collaged elements,
at the centre of Pomegranate King is a female portrait. Depicted in profile with flowing red and black locks, she is surrounded by split pomegranates suggesting abundance revealed through rupture, the fruit being a symbol of fertility, sacrifice and renewal across many Eastern cultures. The serpent recalls pre-patriarchal associations of wisdom, transformation, and knowledge. Masculine and feminine energies coexist, intertwined with nature
rather than opposed to it – the female’s striped hair paralleling the black and red stripes of the snake. Through its
fragmented collage structure, the work embraces contradiction: strength alongside vulnerability, power alongside care.
This painting is part of a series in which Saadatkhan responds to Nietzsche’s idea of Uomo Natura, which emphasises
humanity as inseparable from nature, and argues for the embracing of nature and sexuality as a creative force.
Pomegranate King proposes a vision of leadership, not from an external monarch, but from a complex and contested
inner drive.