Press Release
O Gallery is pleased to present The Typology of Lines and the Absence/Presence of Color Amongst Other Things, a group exhibition selected by Orkideh Daroodi on the occasion of Art Week. Selecting from three generations of artists, Shahla Hosseini (b. 1954 Tehran ), Ali Nassir (b. 1951 Tehran), Mohammad Khalili (b. 1971 Torbat-e-jam ), Omid Moshksar (b. 1962 Shiraz), Ashkan Sanei (b. 1984 Urumieh) and Razieh Sedighian (b. 1986 Tehran) all present a collection of drawings mainly on paper with one exception of one large canvas by Ali Nassir. As Giorgio Vasari has very delicately stated, “drawing is the necessary beginning of everything in art and not having it, one has nothing.” But drawing is not just the beginning; it empowers the artist’s creative process and can in itself be an end, a form of self-expression that can be clearly seen in the works selected for this exhibition. Ali Nassir’s surfaces are filled with forms and bright colors and it is this fusion of lines and colors that makes Nassir’s drawings similar to that of a never-ending narration; perhaps a happy chaos in nature that shifts between known and unknown forms. The fluidity of his lines in the presence of colors, create energetic and dynamic spontaneous images of nature that afloat, freed of the laws of perspective, presenting multiple centers of attention for the audience. Shahla Hosseini, on the other hand uses very pale and light colors to present abstract interpretations of personal events. She adds foreign objects and collages to her work not as encoded symbols but rather personal references. Nevertheless, her signature lines, the elliptical forms she creates and the overall quality of her work express her desire to represent something familiar in the abstract form. Omid Moshksar, in continuation of his previous collections, portrays imaginative drawings that not only show his masterly abilities as an artist, but also show his ability in imagining a world that is familiar and at the same time peculiar. His attention to detail in representation of his figures is apparent in the rough and nevertheless soft lines he Use. And here with the presence of the single color blue, he draws even further attention to the black and whiteness of the works. Similarly, Mohammad Khalili creates black and white melancholic images that are representative of his mysterious world. A world in which even in the absence of figures, the audience is left with realistic, yet metaphoric references to a great sense of solitude. Ashkan Sanei is known for his doodle drawings which enjoy the immediacy of the relationship among feeling, mind and performance. His work, mostly done with pencil or ink on paper, recently always in black and white is all about lines; their presence and their absence and disappearance. In his practice, he finds creativity in lessening rather than adding. For Sanei, this constant reduction is emblematic of the concept of time; a time in which things slowly and gradually diminish. Razieh Sedighian bases her work on details and the delicate pointillism which forms imaginary impromptu images that may look like maps at times. As her previous collections were made up of lines and dots and mainly just one color, in her new collection, in the absence of lines and colors, she has created improvised patterns achieved by small wholes against soft and delicate rice papers in a way that one needs to get as close as possible to the work to be able to recognize the slightest traces she has created.
Selected Works
