Untitled 2009

This untitled work by Mostafa Dashti is like a burst of heat, seemingly made with layers of watercolor or diluted acrylics. It shows an artmaking process that's all about letting go. The painting is built up with washes of color, the kind that stain the paper and become part of it. Patches of intense orange and red give way to shadowy blacks, creating a push-and-pull effect. Look at the way the colors bleed into each other, especially where the fiery orange meets the stark black on the right. It's almost like a dance, isn't it? The vertical strokes in the background remind me of Gerhard Richter’s squeegee paintings, but with a warmer, more human touch. It’s a reminder that painting is a conversation across time, an ongoing exploration of color, form, and feeling that embraces the unpredictable.