Booth S05, Hall A
"Wide Shut" is a series of acrylic paintings made between 2016 and 2019 by Iranian artist Dariush Hosseini. Throughout the series, we notice subtle yet perceptible references to nature, sometimes even feel natural forces emanating from the surface of the paintings. However, even though each painting might remind viewers of a specific scene or season in nature, like a dark crushing wave, mountains, or a flower field in spring, the artist has never been particularly interested in representing nature, per se. It was a particular visual quality, "wide-shut" as Hosseini calls it, that he has been pursuing for many years.
The idea behind these paintings consists of diminishing the perspective, bringing forms and motifs to a condition where they are neither figurative nor just abstract, and they can expand beyond the edges of the canvas, giving them an almost decorative quality. This idea comes from Hosseini' love for Persian miniature and other similar Asian traditions where motifs and flatness play an important role in the image.
"In my more abstract paintings, I have always wanted to find substitutes for my forms in nature and the objective world, and I felt that nature is a subject whose elements can recur throughout the space. The viewer could imagine that as the frame grows bigger, these motifs could replicate and fill the space ad infinitum", says the artist; like closeups of flowers in a green field, or flower motifs printed on fabric.
Dariush Hosseini (b. 1970, Iran) holds an BA in painting and an MA in illustration from the University of Tehran where he was a lecturer and a member of the Faculty of Fine Arts until 2011. He is also an associate at Iran Painters Association. Hosseini has held 11 solo drawing and painting exhibitions in Iran and more than 50 group and annual exhibitions in Iran, Turkey, France, and the United Arab Emirates. Hosseini has been a jury member in more than 15 visual arts festivals, held many drawing and painting workshops, lectures, and artist talks in Iran. He has also written several articles and reviews for Iranian visual arts magazines.
His body of paintings and drawings consists of oscillations between figuration and abstraction not only throughout his career but at times even in the process of painting on a single canvas, while rarely adhering to a pure end of this spectrum.
