Ali Nassir

Ali Nassir (b. 1951 Tehran) received his primary and secondary education in Tehran. He left for Europe at the age of 23 and eventually chose Berlin to reside in.  Hesitant in choosing between architecture, cinema and painting, he finally chose painting and studied fine arts at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin from 1978 to 1983.  During the same time, he received a grant to be an exchange student at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Besançon, France.
In 1985, he received a two-year scholarship by Hochschule der Künste in support of “Young Artists and Scholars.” Between 1991 and 2004, he taught different levels at Hochschule der Künste, Sommerakademie, Paderborn, Technische Fachhochschule in Berlin and was a visiting professor at Tehran and Azad Universities in Tehran in 2005.
His first period of work began with a poetic depiction of objects and the human figure.
Gradually, his mental and philosophical conflicts with the culture and society of his residing country led to a new found concept of object and human in his work. In this period, his work is no longer about portraying a world and the objects within it, but instead is about discovering other spaces. They are no longer directly about the objects and the figures but their position and relationships in this world. Thus, objects in these works don’t just bear an aesthetic function and are a sign of urban civilization or everyday contemporary life.
Nassir is the kind of artist whose homeland culture is of great vale to and as time passes, it becomes even more valuable. And it is because of this reason that he finds the basis of his colors in Iran. His approach to Persian Miniature is creative though and he never tries to imitate the structural system of Iranian painting. In a direct comparison, the effect of the miniatures’ shimmering colors on Nassir’s work can become apparent in a wonderful manner. Despite all, it is the art history of the West which hands him the basic ingredients for his work. It constantly invites in issues, raises questions and provides him with artistic possibilities and contents. It is in this manner that in the hidden layers of these enigmatic works with wonderful and inexplainable coloring in which objects shine like jewels, he investigates humankind issues on a deeper level.
Taking advantage of the different cultures that he has inhabited, gives him a unique aesthetic structure. He allows us to look at the world from an angle that is at first unfamiliar and distant.
Drawings constitute a significant part of Nassir’s work. They are independent of his paintings. But similar to his paintings, they are a representation of his existential structure and created in an identical aesthetic setting. The world of the drawings, as that of the paintings, is boundless. They encompass the very personal to the borders of everyday life. From the blank moments to the enthusiasm of an intuitive gesture blooming for understanding a “thing” unknown or untouchable. For “observing” a “thing” unobserved. From sketches of a drama to the capturing of beautiful moments. From the composition of childhood memories to current experiences and everyday events.
The different periods of Ali Nassir’s work, although independent, are of one collection and at the heart of this collection is the portrayal of human and human existence. By freeing form as an anarchistic fragment from order and the refusing to portray a specific human being or geography, Nassir has achieved a unique style. The content of each of his works is connected to the subject of another work and in this way, a chain of works is created whose purpose is to examine the human condition. Human in its broader context and in its universal form.