Untitled 2011

This ‘Untitled’ painting was made by Mostafa Dashti, who was born in 1960. It's a brooding landscape, full of turbulent marks, like it has emerged slowly. The paint is thick and viscous in places, pooling and cresting like waves. A dark palette of charcoal greys, silvers, and blacks. I can imagine Dashti working on this picture over time. Layer upon layer, the painting gradually materializes into a vision. Gestural marks build atmosphere; the sky gathers weight, the earth becomes dense and muddy. Then that striking, almost brutal, daub of red. A solar presence, but also a stark contrast to the darkness all around it. It brings a raw emotional charge, a sense of tension or even violence. I see the influence of painters like Anselm Kiefer in the way Dashti layers and textures his surfaces, building up a weighty, almost sculptural presence. It's all part of an ongoing conversation among painters, across generations. Each one picks up the thread and runs with it. This kind of painting asks more questions than it answers, and it is open to interpretation.