Ali Razavi | "Dynamic Shapes": Dastan's Basement

Dastan is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of works by Ali Razavi titled “Dynamic Shapes” at Dastan’s Basement. The exhibition opens on Friday, August 9, 2019, and will continue through August 23, 2019. This is the first exhibition of works by Ali Razavi at Dastan.
Ali Razavi (b. 1977, Tehran) initially studied mechanical engineering, but after almost twenty years of working in the arts and design sectors, went on to obtain a post-graduate degree in painting. He has been exclusively focused on painting and site-specific drawings since then. In recent years, his work has been exhibited at tens of exhibitions in Iran, the UAE, Europe and North America. Most recently, in 2018, he was part of a “Visual Dialog” series exhibition (with Fereydoun Ave and Shaqayeq Arabi) at Total Arts at the Courtyard in Dubai, UAE, and a solo exhibition of his work was hosted at Tehran’s Fereshte Gallery in early 2019.
Ali Razavi usually starts his works with drawing details and continuously moves on to create more details until they make a larger whole that encompasses the viewer’s field of view. His sources of inspiration are a mixture of images from everyday life and representations from his imagination. The ultimate image reflects the artist’s mental route as a homogenized collage of objects, places, names, thoughts and eventually forms and shapes.
The artist’s approach to the structuring of his paintings brings about a dynamism that allows the viewer to delve into the progression from any arbitrary starting point. While presenting familiar imagery to the viewer, the shapes manage to hide the artist’s footprints, thus the viewers can create their own narratives and sequences. Many of Ali Razavi’s larger pieces appear like doodles —drawings created while the subject’s attention is occupied with other matters. Nevertheless, they are indeed conscious representations of the artist’s mind and subconscious. To invite the viewer to an even more panoramic view into his world, Ali Razavi has extended his drawings to the gallery walls and windows.
By simplifying and limiting his painting and drawing tools, Ali Razavi seeks to make his expressions as reliant on forms and their changes as possible. In his most recent works, a number of which are presented in this exhibition, colored shapes in the form of patches appear in some paintings. Adding a new dimension to the show, they work like geographical landmarks and complement the environmental map presented by the artist.
Writing on his approach in “Dynamic Shapes”, Ali Razavi states: “I’m standing at a point where it feels as if I’m looking upon a journey through a galaxy and changing shapes. Everything appears larger and life is created out of the changing and moving of images. Shapes transform into each other and I am lost in this self-made dimension of mine.”