Shirazeh Houshiary’s works arise from a meditative practice that takes breath as its medium and conceptual framework. For Houshiary, the physical manifestation of breath is the word. As is the case in each of the paintings the artist has produced over her forty-year career, at the basis of these works is a web formed from two words, superimposed onto one another and inscribed with focussed repetition. Houshiary uses words to approach something wordless, the interconnectedness of all things. Houshiary’s process is inherently physical. To produce these finely wrought surfaces and their depths, she must inhabit her canvases. Placing them flat on the floor of her studio, she moves across them, building layers of inscriptions on top of the sediments formed from pouring water mixed with pure pigment. Concentrating on dynamic movement, the mind and body unify.

Swerve, 2023 offers a form of abstraction replete with associations of a cosmological landscape. The surface buzzes with labyrinths of finely-wrought pencilwork over a plumage of intense blue and diaphanous white pigment. Mesmerising and voltaic, the painting arrives out of Houshiary’s meditative practice that employs breath as both medium and conceptual structure.

Shirazeh Houshiary’s works arise from a meditative practice that takes breath as its medium and conceptual framework. For Houshiary, the physical manifestation of breath is the word. As is the case in each of the paintings the artist has produced over her forty-year career, at the basis of these works is a web formed from two words, superimposed onto one another and inscribed with focussed repetition. Houshiary uses words to approach something wordless, the interconnectedness of all things. Houshiary’s process is inherently physical. To produce these finely wrought surfaces and their depths, she must inhabit her canvases. Placing them flat on the floor of her studio, she moves across them, building layers of inscriptions on top of the sediments formed from pouring water mixed with pure pigment. Concentrating on dynamic movement, the mind and body unify.

Swerve, 2023 offers a form of abstraction replete with associations of a cosmological landscape. The surface buzzes with labyrinths of finely-wrought pencilwork over a plumage of intense blue and diaphanous white pigment. Mesmerising and voltaic, the painting arrives out of Houshiary’s meditative practice that employs breath as both medium and conceptual structure.

Shirazeh Houshiary’s works arise from a meditative practice that takes breath as its medium and conceptual framework. For Houshiary, the physical manifestation of breath is the word. As is the case in each of the paintings the artist has produced over her forty-year career, at the basis of these works is a web formed from two words, superimposed onto one another and inscribed with focussed repetition. Houshiary uses words to approach something wordless, the interconnectedness of all things. Houshiary’s process is inherently physical. To produce these finely wrought surfaces and their depths, she must inhabit her canvases. Placing them flat on the floor of her studio, she moves across them, building layers of inscriptions on top of the sediments formed from pouring water mixed with pure pigment. Concentrating on dynamic movement, the mind and body unify.

Swerve, 2023 offers a form of abstraction replete with associations of a cosmological landscape. The surface buzzes with labyrinths of finely-wrought pencilwork over a plumage of intense blue and diaphanous white pigment. Mesmerising and voltaic, the painting arrives out of Houshiary’s meditative practice that employs breath as both medium and conceptual structure.