Untitled 2006

Morteza Katouzian made this painting, size 120 x 90 cm, at an unknown date using oil paints. Looking at the surface, I see careful blending and a sombre palette, like a memory slowly materializing. The women, cloaked in darkness, are rendered with such meticulous detail in their faces and hands, as if to emphasize their humanity against the void. The orange and blue in the top third of the picture almost resembles an overcast sky. Take the woman in glasses; her expression is caught between grief and contemplation. The softness with which her hand rests against her face, the realism in her lenses. These elements suggest a story, a process of working through loss and pain with care and compassion. There's an echo of early Renaissance masters here, but with a contemporary, intimate twist. It’s a reminder that art has always been a means of bearing witness and offering solace, engaging with emotional ambiguity over didactic meaning.