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Shirazeh Houshiary

2012 · Pencil, pigments, and acrylic on canvas and aluminum · Islamic Art

Three gyrating forms of interconnected gray fibers emanate from the dark blue field of this painting. The center of each is punctured by a black or white spot. As in many of her works, the artist started with a crosshatched rendition of two Persian words to generate the delicate, pulsating web pattern seen here. The words are obscured by their repetition, so the viewer cannot deduce their meaning with the naked eye. According to Houshiary: "It is like something coming into existence out of nothing and where the web has been punctured, there is an absence of breath." The torqueing of the membrane and the abstraction of the words themselves create a riveting tension in the composition and raise questions about physical presence and its effects.

Artist

Shirazeh Houshiary

Date

2012

Medium

Pencil, pigments, and acrylic on canvas and aluminum

Department

Islamic Art

Credit line

Purchase, 2011 NoRuz at The Met Benefit, 2012