Untitled 2007

Mostafa Dashti made this painting with what looks like black, grey, and pale blue paint, maybe even a touch of white. I can imagine Dashti layering the black paint thickly, building up a craggy landscape that almost pushes out of the picture. Then he might have thinned the blues and greys, letting them flow and blend to create a sense of depth and atmosphere. That one daub of pure white! It’s as if he were searching for a way to capture the way light hits water or reflects off clouds. It reminds me of other painters who use abstraction to evoke a sense of place, like Turner or Agnes Martin. I bet Dashti was thinking about them too! They are all in conversation, across time, inspiring each other. Ultimately, painting is just a form of embodied expression, an acceptance of ambiguity. There’s not one way to read this picture.