Untitled 2011

Mostafa Dashti’s untitled painting is a landscape of the mind, worked in oil paint. Look at how he's handled the pigment, almost like it's mud or clay, pushed and pulled, a real process of layering and excavating. I love how the texture gives it a sense of depth and unease. The colors are muted, mainly grays and blacks, but then bam, that intense red circle punches through the gloom like a sun or a wound. I can almost feel the weight of the dark paint, thick and opaque in places, then scraped back to reveal hints of underlayers. It's not just about what's on the surface, but what's buried underneath. The physical act of painting seems important. I’m thinking about a particular smudge of black paint, right in the middle, how it seems to anchor the whole composition, like a dark thought that won't go away. This piece feels like a cousin to Anselm Kiefer's landscapes, where the land is scarred and heavy with history, or maybe even some of Guston’s later, darker works. Art is just one big conversation, after all, and this one has a lot to say.