Yashar Salahi | "Solitude": Dastan's Basement

Dastan presents an exhibition of works by Yashar Salahi titled “Solitude” at Dastan’s Basement. The exhibition will open on Friday, 2 October, 2020, and will be on display for public viewing until October 23. His third solo exhibition at Dastan, this presentation features works of acrylic paint and ink on canvas, paper and cardboard along with metal wire installations. 

Yashar Salahi (b. 1978, Tehran) obtained his bachelor degree in clinical psychology. He began to work as a drawing artist, painter, cartoonist and illustrator immediately after graduation. Yashar Salahi has illustrated five books and worked with several publications; many of his illustrations and cartoons have been published in several magazines and newspapers. Having developed a preference for isolation, however, he has since decided to devote his time and career solely to drawing.

Deeply affected by the daily observations of his immediate environment, Yashar Salahi populates his paintings with crowds and characters he is surrounded by in his neighborhood —sometimes depicting them in infinite numbers and at times emphasizing the peculiarities of each and every individual. In a move away from the busy metropolis to take refuge in the less crowded suburbs of Tehran, the artist zoomed in less crowded scenes in his paintings, focusing more on one character out of the many. 

In this series, portrayals of isolated faces are the rare scenarios that puncture the artist’s crowded scenes. Sticking out from the crowd —bold, empty-headed and dehumanized— these distorted portraits stand somewhere between abstraction and figuration. Yashar Salahi’s sculptural forms are an attempt to find a means by which he can further discharge and transform his expressive energy into visual form. Using unpredictably fragmented lines connected through intricate folds and knots, these metal wire structures suggest, as the artist relates, “the fragility and unpredictability of human psyche”.