THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD: Ahmad Amin Nazar

Overview

In his first exhibition in Dubai, Ahmad Amin Nazar presents a collection of kinetic paintings that evoke a tradition in chaos. A master of line and form, the artist taught private drawing classes to a new generation of Iranian artists in the early '90s, with Rokni and Ramin Haerizadeh as pupils who both cite the artist to be of major influence.

 

Among the sweeping black lines that whip elegantly across Amin Nazar's canvases, wrestlers and shadowy forms emerge. With a nod to Goya's The Disasters of War, Amin Nazar creates carefully constructed vignette-like scenes. We see grotesque masks and the heads of demons atop Persian wrestlers engaged in a surreal battle. Delicate yet inflammatory bursts of paint seem to flash in the distance as if the lights of a distant battle are the only illumination.

Installation Views
Works