REZA AZIMIAN

Reset
14 February -10 March, 2014

Assar Art Gallery is pleased to present Reset, an exhibition of paintings by Reza Azimian.

In his fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, Reza Azimian showcases his third subseries to his original Download series for which he got massive recognition in Iran and abroad. Initially conceived in 2009, Download was about the experience of strong sense of dependence on technology and how the Internet has become a powerful go-between of people’s minds causing them to experience a bitter sense of isolation, distance and loneliness. The series developed into False Feelings in 2011, where Azimian went deeper and set his focus more on the pernicious impacts of technology on our mind and intellect and pictured how man suffers from extreme lack of focus in terms of mental, emotional and visual function. In his latest collection, Reset, the artist pushes further into the psychic and negative impact of speed and technology on our power of recognition, comprehension and connection and renders our devastatingly severe state of mental, intellectual and visual blunder that causes us to be totally disconnected from our surroundings.

In this collection of eight oil paintings, Reza Azimian has chosen a limited palette of three colors: black, red and white. In each painting, he has selected an image from the real or virtual world and manipulated it favorably: deleted the background, made women’s hair loose, blurred it, inserted some electronic signs and symbols or placed the figures in the dark. What stands out in all eight paintings is the contrast and juxtaposition. The contrast between the glossiness of red and dullness of black; between the gentle feeling of a delicate figure of a living creature – be it a woman, a cat or a horse – and the immense amount of void and monotony; between the smoothness of blurred surfaces and sharpness of the inserted objects and hardware signs and symbols.

None of the eight exhibited oil paintings implies a particular space, time or story. None arouses an emotional or stimulating feeling either and none is intended to make viewers recall any of their personal experiences or memories. Instead, through his influential visual language and the seemingly disrelated titles he has picked for each work, Reza Azimian has picked an analytical technique to reflect an analytical matter and guide his audience through an analytical trail by alienating them from what they see and supposedly comprehend.

Reza Azimian was born in 1977 in Hamedan, Iran, where he currently works and lives. His work has been exposed in a number of International art fairs and group exhibitions and can be found in important collections both inside and outside Iran.