IMAN AFSARIAN

An Exhibition About Dust, Shadow, Glass, Water
20 September -18 October, 2019

Assar Art Gallery presents the latest series of works by Iman Afsarian titled An Exhibition About Dust, Shadow, Glass and Water. Three years in the making, the series was created in continuation of Afsarian’s painting practice.

Afsarian who focused more on outdoors and light in his past exhibition, returns to indoors once again. This time, more than ever before, he lays emphasis on the quality and texture of objects: their thinnest outer layers, the texture of water, texture of glass, texture of wall’s peels of paint. His recent works, thus, are not only the product of his physical vision, but also somehow related to his sense of touch, as if his brush is his finger tip that explores the texture and feel of the objects.

In Afsarian’s recent paintings, the fragility and delicacy of a jar, the opacity of the soot and dust on the wall, the wet surface of the stones that make the small pool, the peels of ceiling’s paint or the shadow of a lamp on the wall have all appeared on the canvas in a way as if the entire painting is a very thin layer of an object and if the essence of objects appear in their thinnest outer layers instead of their deeper strata.

In this series, Afsarian mostly focuses on different corners of his home. In addition, compared to his past series, he employs different painting techniques that at some point make him work on a single painting for eight to twelve months.

Behind each of the seven oil canvases on display, there are some autobiographical stories or personal concerns that materialize in the titles of each painting: “Requiem”, “The Empty Space of Absence”, “In the Mourning of the Migration of the Armenians of Iran” and “For Hoda”. The concepts of these paintings, too, might signify a connotation like cherishing wine, or bringing Kamal-ol-Molk’s painting of Golestan Palace’s Pond House to mind.

Iman Afsarian was born in 1974 in Tehran where he currently works and lives. He received his MA in illustration and BA in painting from Tehran’s University of Art where he has lectured for the past 8 years. He is also one of the founding members of the renowned Herfeh:Honarmand [Profession:Artist] quarterly and works as its Editor-in-chief. Afsarian has had 11 solo exhibitions and participated in many international group exhibitions, art fairs and biennials.