On January 2nd, 1960, Vaziri created what he defined as his first sand painting, having finally found the most adequate technique to fix sand on canvas.

The Sand Composition n.1, exhibited today for the first time after twenty years, marks the beginning of an artistic vision that will keep developing over the following three years, using fingers to dig and create intricate, intertwining lines.

 

These paintings carry in them the traces of the artist's physical contact with the material, capturing traces of touch within their textured surfaces. As the artist recalls: “I was playing with black sand on the shore and entertaining my friends. Suddenly, the traces of my fingers in the sand caught my attention: I had an idea and memories of my childhood and playing with sand as a child came flooding back… a trivial game turned into a visual practice. I stopped playing with my friends and I went back to Rome with a bag of sand. Finding shapes in sand turned into a past time and it took me months to transfer the patterns I found onto a canvas.”

This emphasis on bodily experience and sensory interaction subsequently permeated Vaziri's artistic evolution. The rhythmic movement of the fingers and their parallel forms, initially explored in the 'sand paintings', extended to his aluminum reliefs and eventually to the articulated sculptures in 1969.