Painting as a Contemplation on the Painting

Reflections on Nostatollah Moslemian’s Paintings

Iranshahr Gallery, Fall 2017

Helia Darabi

The recent series of paintings by Nusratollah Moslemian typically demonstrates a gradual, measured change comparing the previous ones. His painting career characteristically develops in a slow and steady pace, with each series representing variations to a certain extent. To him -in accordance with Greenberg’s creed- the artistic mission to explore the possibilities of painting as a medium is the main priority. Mosslemian’s persistence in this inquiry through four decades has led to a body of work distinguished among other practices within Iranian contemporary art scene.

Moslemian’s painting continuum is characterized by an expansion and suspension of visual elements, disintegration of the space, and a paradoxical text. His characteristic spatio-temporal arrangement of the pictorial field involves the simultaneous existence of several visual languages in a single image. The paintings are, then, comprised of many fragments juxtaposed in a collage-like organization: flat colour fields, contour drawings, carefully rendered representational elements (figures or portraits), expressive brushstrokes, geometrical motives and everyday textures. These elements create various “regions” which altogether constitute Moslemian’s world of painting. The regions act like instruments in a symphony, constantly altering in their strength of feebleness in each painting, and this dynamism continues in all Moslemian’s work. 

The “regions” are the result of a rupture occurred in the painter’s career in early 1990s, which marked a beginning of his personal visual structure, unique in Iranian art scene during the 90s. The regions, which responded to a need to transit an artistic impasse, are rooted in Modern pictorial inventions like cubism as well as multi-faceted pictorial space in Iranian traditional painting.

The regions appear in various forms. In an attempt to deconstruct and analyze them, one might define at least five forms of visual expression, frequently merging and mixing: 1) Figurative carefully representational fragments, mostly isolated from the picture plane, which generally play a pivotal role in the ambiguous narrative of the piece. 2) flat colourful fields, being drawn in the picture plane or bursting through it, drastically contrasting like an expanding rupture. These field, together with the representational figurations, make a pre-determined semantic duality with both sides appearing at the same strength. The fields appear so flat that we conceive them as the original canvas or paper surface. The matt, concealing quality of the fields is also notable as it seems that the colour expands to cover the reality, making a solid, two-dimensional structure. The artist himself also considers them as a hint to censorship. 3) small regions containing expressive brushstrokes, differing in painterly or hard-edge qualities. 4) fragments containing themes including traditional geometric motifs, contemporary formal compositions, or scenes from old Persian lithograph books. 5) Contour paintings, generally with a distinct critical narrative content, demonstrating a variety of drawing styles and techniques.

The regions are Moslemian’s specific visual device to achieve a paradoxical text. Each region is a module in visual language, interacting with others in certain dynamism. They suppress, aggravate or resonate with each other, bringing a visual as well as semantic vibration to the picture. The duality of the abstract fields and the representational fragments resonates the duality between the essence and the appearance, the universal and the particular. Once the spirit of the red is intensified by the effect of the linear patterns, and once the command of the orange colour diminished the other elements. The paradoxical visual structure resounds the fragmented lived experience. The alteration of this power battle determines the transition from each painting to the other.

The drawings demonstrate considerable variety in style.  They are, however, consistent in strength, expression and an epic character. The dismantling of the pictorial plane does not include the solidity of drawings. The drawings have gradually assumed more and more independent stance and they seem to be winning the battle between the elements. They are generally delineated within a blank fragment: a frame inside the picture frame.

Due to the multiplicity of the regions, the painting lacks a semantic center for the narrative. The dialectical structure constantly takes the viewer from one reality to the other, affirming the basically inconsistent nature of signification. The layers ceaselessly shift and build up transient bonds to the reality, an effect which altogether results in an intensified reality. By his intricate web of signs, Moslemian does not aim at pointless complication, rather, he conceives this semiotics at the service of recreating a sensible, meaningful, and intensified experience of reality. 

The aesthetic experience of Moslemian’s paintings includes the rare opportunity to confront expanded possibilities of painting. The spatio-temporal organization of the picture plane brings about a special quality of the experience of painting. There is both the primal impact and the subsequent contemplative moments, which raise many unanswered questions. The everyday colours can once again surprise us, and the painting brings our attention to the visual: a moment to learn to see, a practice for the gaze.