Untitled 1989

Mostafa Dashti made this painting with oil on canvas, using layered brushstrokes to depict a highway receding into the distance. The artist really went for it here, diving right into this flat, horizontal plane, and that distant mountain on the horizon. I can imagine Dashti applying these marks, one after another, building up the composition with each layer. The artist's choice of a muted, almost monochromatic color palette of blues, whites, and tans evokes a melancholic atmosphere. It makes me think about what it's like to experience the long, sometimes lonely, passages of time. The texture of the paint itself looks pretty smooth, which softens the impact of the individual strokes, blending the tones together to create a sense of depth. It's like a dance between what's seen and what's felt. The image could be a nod to artists like Edward Hopper, who also looked at these kinds of isolated subjects and emotions. Hopefully the artists knew they were part of a much larger, ongoing visual conversation.