Mohammad Khalili, teacher, contemporary painter and printmaker, was born in Torbat Jam in 1971 and studied his BA and MA in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Tehran University (2004) and Shahed University,Tehran (2009). At the same time, he studied art with such teachers as Javad Hamidi, Jafar Rouhbakhsh, Mehdi Hosseini and Mohammad Ebrahim Jafari. He has earned the title of the second runner-up in the field of caricature in Isfahan province and has experienced some museum and gallery exhibitions. Khalili held his first solo exhibition in Farrokh Gallery in Mashhad in 2005 and after that he participated in other solo and group exhibitions. Khalili's next solo exhibition was held at Aria Gallery in 2010, and then until 2014, he held his exhibitions at Azad Art Gallery, Tehran.
The characteristic features we know from Khalili's paintings were consolidated in a collection called "Nowhere." In this collection, an installation of giant stones is painted on the beach horizon. By taking advantage of the scale contradiction, by placing small human figures next to these natural phenomena, the awe and greatness of the stones are emphasized. This coexistence creates a kind of lofty feeling that reminds the romanticists' view of nature. By creating eerie backgrounds, he creates a surreal atmosphere that, despite the realism of his paintings, gives the paintings a dreamy mood and takes them away from pure realism.
Khalili considers nature as the departure point for his paintings, and this origin leads to the imagination in his artworks' path. This romantic view is also evident in the rest of Khalili's work periods. In a collection titled "Silent Side," by removing direct human presence, he makes natural elements and immediate human presence the central subject of his artwork. He depicts large pieces of pipes and concrete blocks in a desolate landscape, similar to a barren one. This comparison between human complications and the natural environment takes on a symbolic and romantic aspect. On the other hand, the color options of these paintings, which are gray and muted, add to the stillness and silence of the landscapes.