Untitled 

Bahman Mohasses created this Untitled painting in 1976. The somber palette and stark composition immediately evoke a sense of melancholy. The fish, rendered in muted tones of grey, white, and brown, lies horizontally across the canvas, its form simplified to near abstraction. Mohasses’s focus on the elemental structure of the fish—its shape, texture, and the way light plays across its surface—invites us to consider the painting as more than just a still life. The artist uses the fish as a sign, a symbol. Is it a symbol of mortality, vulnerability, or perhaps the transient nature of life itself? The stark background and the isolation of the subject amplify these readings, turning the ordinary into something profoundly symbolic. Note the texture created by the brushstrokes, giving the fish a tactile quality that contrasts with the flatness of the background. This interplay between texture and flatness challenges our perception, inviting contemplation on the nature of representation itself, and how art can destabilize our understanding.