Press Release
O Gallery is pleased to present “Latent Bodies”, a series of large-scale oil paintings on canvas by Donya Aalipour (b. 1995 Tehran, Iran), marking the artist’s second solo show with the gallery.
The series on display began shortly after her first exhibition at the gallery two years ago. Unlike her previous show, this one brings together works from different stages of her practice. It originated with “Walking in the Imaginary Streets of Tehran” (2023), Aalipour’s final project at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, which expanded the concept of “Image in Image” into new layers of meaning.
This collage-like approach grew out of a layered accumulation of experiences and incidents at a fast pace; echoing today’s constant flow of disruptions. In these works, she blends reality, memory and the present into concepts that are constantly reinventing themselves. One element carried over from her earlier show is the recurring rhinoceros, a single symbol appearing in different contexts, blurring the line between reality and imagination.
After that project, Aalipour shifted her focus to collective movements, group dances and protests—drawing on both her own lived experience and her active participation in seven group exhibitions between her two solo shows. Through these works, she explores personal identity within collective life—how presence and boundaries are defined within social and psychological dynamics.
Among these group shows, “New Stories” and “Stories in Color” stand out as clearly reflecting the essence of her artistic path: her dedication to contemporary narratives and her interest in how we act within, and respond to, the conditions of it—how we wish to be seen, felt and understood, and how we relate to others and our environment.
Aalipour mostly works with human figures, yet through bright, saturated colors and expressive lines, her paintings at times lean toward abstraction. Together, the series forms a non-linear narrative of metaphors on human existence, inevitably alluding to her homeland, while also reflecting on global crises.
Selected Works
Installation Views
