Featuring a selection of figurative works from Khezri’s series and landscapes by Nasle Shamloo.
These artists belong to the same generation of Iranian painters and their art shares several traits; their works are testimony to each artist’s mastery of painting and drawing media; Khezri and Nasle Shamloo are also sensitive observers who share a preference for restrained color palettes and a sense of compositional focus and order reminiscent of great Iranian filmmakers.
Most interestingly, while the subjects might differ, muted natural light and the way its presence is reflected in each artist’s form and concept, play a dominant role in defining the space quality and overall mood of the paintings. This is the kind of sensitivity that one can hardly encounter in contemporary painting today.
Figurative southern artist Moslem Khezri is represented by two series of works. His paintings and drawings from “We Keep reviewing” depict various empty and populated scenes of an all-boys school in Tehran, each sensitively staged with narrow, autumnal sunlight that highlights the tenderness of youth and evanescence of memory. Thanks to his first-hand experience with the educational environment, these images ultimately transcend time and location to become visual playfields for schoolboys’ figures to interact with and transform their spaces.
Nasle Shamloo, on the other hand, addresses our modern alienation from nature. His green, cloudy, and mysterious landscapes are characterized by a significant dual absence: human figures and sunlight; a fact that quiets the scenes and lends a timeless aspect to them. Nasle Shamloo’s imagined nature is built upon visual memory and many layers of creation and destruction: beautiful, elegant landscapes with an undertone of absence and yearning.
