Light as Form

Light as Form brings together the diverse works of Mounzer Kamnakache, Thaier Helal, and Farzad Kohan. Although employing divergent aesthetics and addressing a range of subject matter, the featured artists all incorporate the concept of light as a formal property that also functions as a signifier. Contrasts in light serve as a way to guide the viewer across the canvas, highlighting key areas of the composition, while simultaneously symbolising various phenomena, giving each work a sense of movement across space and time. By using this technique, Kamnakache, Helal, and Kohan depict evolving processes in which their subjects appear to grow or change within the boundaries of the picture plane.

In Kamnakache's untitled paintings, for example, sun-drenched scenes of his recurring scarlet heroine describe the cyclical nature of life. Alluding to the ancient Greek myth of Leda and the Swan—the story of Zeus' seduction of a queen and the subsequent birth of their children, one of which was Helen of Troy— Kamnakache depicts figures whose bodies appear enlivened by the elements, as the effect of wind upon supple flesh is detailed with white and pink gradations. Clouds are also treated with this use of colour and mimic the volume and mass of his humans and birds. The maternal figure sways and turns in each scene as her lover or children follow, and the sky moves with them.

Helal's abstract untitled canvases include variations in light rendered with dense applications of paint and additional media such as leaves. Inspired by the sowing of seeds, in which plants are equally spaced in rows, Helal carefully organises his compositions with an evocation of nature's underlying code before recreating the spontaneous development of its facets as different forces meet, whether the imprints of man or the determinants of a season. Helal applies loose brushwork as a final layer of his compositions: white and gray areas of paint that drip down the canvas, resulting in instinctive actions and unpredictable outcomes.

Kohan similarly uses abstract forms to depict perceptible realities by constructing surfaces that evoke the sensations of human experiences and the physical and psychic spaces in which they occur. Kohan's compositions are realised through a laboured process that involves several stages of painting and collage. Allusions to light form as he strips away layers of his painted panels and sections of hidden strata are revealed. In Make Me Crazier (2012) Persian text is barely visible against a deep blue background and an uncovered base that appears worn despite illuminating the composition.

The illusion of depth that is produced from the artist's reworking of the surface causes the text to 'float' in the painting. Presumably in reference to a personal exchange, the work's title suggests that, although summoned to provide clarity, in some instances words are futile.