The largest most breathtaking work Echo, 2013, evokes an expansive body of water. Numerous shades of blue shimmer through the canvas like the dappling surface of the ocean. Hues of aquamarine, purple, gray, and green are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the painting. The illusion of an aerial view is created through the subtle manipulation of color and tone, such that there is a constant play of light that radiates from various points and illuminates the entire canvas. A thick black jagged line that resembles the edge of a landmass severs the painting into two. Houshiary uses this device to map the perceptual space in the work, while emphasizing the materiality of its physical qualities and the aesthetic dimensions of this same surface.

The viewer is drawn to her signature web of fine lines that seem almost embroidered rather than meticulously hand painted. On closer inspection, a veil stretches over each canvas that gives the work its delicacy and beauty. Influenced by Islamic architecture and its interlacing patterns, Houshiary’s all over filigree-like design serves a deeper transcendental purpose. The translucent gossamer both obscures and directs the viewers’ eyes towards a deeper metaphysical space. One is induced into a meditative trance by the prismatic effect of the colors and the intricate decorative element. These qualities seem to highlight the recurring presence of the infinity of time and space in her works.

In Ode, 2013, and Vertigo, 2013, also constructed in a similar vein with alluring veils and birds-eye-perspectives, Houshiary shapes the mood of her paintings through her choice of colors.  Varied saturations of purple give Ode a more somber feel, while a lighter palette of sky blues and violets provide Vertigo with an ethereal tonality.  Much like Mark Rothko’s abstractions, Houshiary’s use of color fields and flat surfaces make the paintings vibrate with emotional depth and create contemplative moments.

Shirazeh Houshiary, Dust, (still frame), 2011-2013. Digital animation run time: 7 minutes, 8 seconds. Edition of 6. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Her video installation titled Dust, 2011-13, is made up of burning candles that form a grid against a backdrop of ivory travertine. Wafts of soot become amorphous fragile clouds before they disappear and reappear to take new shapes and patterns. The slow, almost imperceptible movement of veils of soot against the pale limestone reveals the gradual transience of time, and the yin and yang of opposites—black fleeting soot against the permanence of solid white stone. The accompanying soundtrack of a violin combined with the hypnotic incantation of a chant mesmerizes the viewer.  Houshiary demonstrates her ease with various mediums as she deftly combines different artistic traditions.

The sculptures in the gallery made from bright, anodized aluminum bricks differ from the paintings in their sturdy sinuous forms and muscular armature. A sense of rhythm and movement emanates from the curvatures and the arrangement of varied shades of bricks. Although less appealing than their two-dimensional counterparts, these large works complement the paintings in the gallery.

At the end, Houshiary succeeds in making the viewer believe that if art is to remain an important entity it has to go beyond daily existence.  It must rise above culture and creed in order to resonate with the human soul.

By Bansie Vasvani

The post The Eye Fell in Love with the Ear by Shirazeh Houshiary appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Paradise Lost, 2001-13, comprising of twelve 10’ x 60’ panels, is the precursor to the world of doom. Mughal artistry, Indian mythology, and medieval history come together in Shaw’s evocation of John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost.” Here in the garden of innocence, untainted as yet by the ways of the world, a coyote howls ominously at the moon. Dark skies, coniferous forests, and mountainous terrains abundant with the animal kingdom reminiscent of Noah’s Ark and the Panchatantra—Indian animal fables of the 3^rd century—slowly give way to daylight, cherry blossoms, and hordes of chirping birds. Shaw proves to be the quintessential raconteur of images as his narrative plays out in languorous splendor along the lengthy canvas. The only human being in the story resembles Hanuman the Indian monkey god from the legendary Ramayana. Yet he is in bondage as he floats from the cherry tree, pointing to forthcoming difficulties. Much like The Garden of Earthly Delight, 2012, filled with bejeweled flowers and dancing peacocks that conjure life before Satan’s treacherous prevarications, Shaw uses the conventional storyteller’s technique of detail and description to enthrall his audience.

Embracing tradition in his flagrant departure from the trajectory of modernism and contemporary art, Shaw’s panoply of strange animals with zebra bodies and bear heads equipped with human mannerisms engage in the annihilation of the world. In Doomsday at Xanadu, 2011-12, Armageddon is nigh. Pillars and grand entrances to opulent empires collapse and unleash a cruel fast paced world of endless destruction. Referencing the explorer Marco Polo’s lavish description of Xanadu, the summer palace of the Mongolian ruler in 1275, with images from ancient Rome, Shaw’s phantasmagoria of a world gone berserk appears plausible. His ability to commingle the past with the present to foretell a realistic future through his make-believe fantasia is the key to his success.

Raqib Shaw, The Disambiguation of the Myth of the Last Shinobi, 2011-2013.
Oil, acrylic, enamel, glitter and rhinestones on Birch wood. 55-3/8 x 55-3/8 in.

In The Disambiguation of the Myth of the Last Shinobi, 2011-12, anxiety pervades beneath the excesses of beauty and overwhelming abundance.  A battle fought by the famous Japanese video game ninja Shinobi is the ostensible cause of the ensuing warfare.  Delivered in Shaw’s over-the-top profusion of action and wreckage, here too in a bizarre world where everything from the structures to the trees are free-floating and untethered, there is great truth behind the carnage that points to the eventual downfall of our own doing.

If one were to draw a connection between Shaw’s images and the Kenyan collage artist Wangechi Mutu’s strange cyborgian women festooned with rhinestones and glitter, one sees a similar fetish for over-extended imagery. It raises an important question about the new lingua franca of non-western artists who blend techniques, traditions, and inspiration from the east and west to communicate their worldviews. For Shaw as much as for Mutu, their outrageously outlandish landscapes inhabited by mysterious creatures both lure and repel as they have a transformative hold on the viewer. Innovativeness and a new kind of aesthetics marked by a combination of extreme forms of beauty and ugliness is their de facto mode of expression. Endlessly fascinating and interpretable works of art emanate from this new language.

Ultimately, Paradise Lost succeeds in engaging the viewer such that there might be the possibility of hope that arises from decay and decadence, and all may not be lost to an unfulfilled paradise.

By Bansie Vasvani

The post Raqib Shaw’s Idiosyncratic Paradise appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.