Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present Light Darkness, an exhibition of new works by Shirazeh Houshiary, on view 29 April - 19 June 2010. Her fifth exhibition at Lehmann Maupin features paintings, drawings, sculpture and video animation. Each of the works in Light Darkness oscillate and metamorphose constantly, revealing the true nature of the world which is not permanent or concrete, but illusive and changing.
Fascinated by repetition dissolving into unfamiliarity, Houshiary constructs her paintings from repeated words, resulting in kinetic, luminous surfaces. "These paintings are very contemplative and encourage the viewer to look within. Here synchronicity is the point of connection between the inner and outer event" Houshiary says of this new body of work.
These undulating surfaces created by countless lines produce a web or veil that captures the viewer's gaze. Creating optical illusions in works like Fading Shadow, Houshiary layers the colors similar to the sky at dusk, where the blue of sky mixes with the fading red color of sunlight to appear pink. Within the paintings the shapes disappear and fragment, leaving ordered and chaotic movements simultaneously. The veiling and layering technique allows the possibility to explore space inside the paintings, which dissolve the distinction between reality and appearance.
Shirazeh Houshiary was born and raised in Iran and moved to London in 1974 to study at Chelsea School of Art. After graduating, she rapidly established herself as one of the leading artists of her generation. Initially known for her sculpture, her first works on canvas date back to 1992. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Camden Arts Centre in London, and the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, among others, and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1994. Houshiary's work was also included in Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in 2006 and will be included in the 2010 Sydney Biennial.
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