Delgosha Gallery proudly  presents the third solo  exhibition  of Mostafa  Sarabi's paintings titled  'The sea, which can't be seen from the coast'.

 

A  two-headed dragon  in  between the sea, one head chasing  after  the myna bird who  is  probably  fleeing away from his  catch, the  other head  having the face   of the painter as if he is taking a  pose  for his picture; the two-headed dragon symbolically is the male Iranian painter  himself with all his characteristics; with  the  ultimate fury and the ultimate tranquility both in the same frame. Sarabi's paintings are this much complicated,  while  he  employs a simple  language. With ease, he  puts  brush-strokes  and  speaks  of  his  world.  A world that in itself is a painting studio, a world he seldom leaves. We need a key and a map for entering this world; we just need  to  look  at  ourselves  and  we  see  it all. In another painting, he portrays himself, he reproduces himself in his paintings;He fabricates  a  mass  of  himself in a place that is, as he says, a field for planting pea in the foot of Zagros mountains. He turns back and  waves at  us  to  makes sure that we recognize him. In his paintings,  he always distances himself from the viewer. He is the painter  of  his own land. He paints what belongs to him or  what he  belongs to.  Painting  is  our border and the land  is painter's. A border that is open only with precautions so only if we are entitled to  be called  friends,  are  allowed  to  enter  and meet him and his family. We get lost in his jungle.  We watch wild horses  without  thinking of taming  them.  When we have nothing, we have everything. His paintings seem to be the most  familiar  place  in  the  land  of  nowhere.  The  sun  in his  painting  is burnt  out. The vultures are busied breeding, patient  more than ever.  The myna bird is dead with  it's cage together, and the painter created a tableau of thousands of myna birds in a sea, a  sea that truly  has  no  seashore.  What  difference does it make to ask  who  has  put  these  brush-strokes on the canvas, time passes equally for all of  us and paradise if we ever find it,  has space for all of us.

 

Mostafa Sarabi  (b. 1983, Kermanshah, Iran)  lives  and  works in  Tehran. He presented  by Balice Hertling in  Paris and he had  a  solo exhibition there in (2019) also in  Tehran  at the Delgosha Gallery (2018 and 2017) and the Atashzad Gallery (2009). His work has  recently been included in group shows at  Giardino  Segreto in Milan (2019), in Tehran  at  Delgosha Gallery  (2019 and 2018),  the  Shirin  Gallery  (2011),  and  the  5th Visual Art Experimental festival youth art (2010).  He  studied  painting  at Shahed University in Tehran.

Text by artist Shabahang Tayyari