Ahmad Amin-nazar, Untitled 14, 2009, Ink on paper, 150 x 1000 cm.

Ahmad Amin Nazar's Reconsideration of Images from Shahnameh

B 21 Art GalleryAl Quoz 10097 1 (0)4 3403965DubaiAhmad Amin NazarThe Centre Cannot HoldFebruary 10-April 10, 2010

Among the sweeping black lines thatwhip elegantly across Amin Nazar’scanvases, wrestlers and shadowyforms emerge. With a nod to Goya’sThe Disasters of War, Amin Nazarcreates carefully constructedvignette-like scenes. We seegrotesque masks and the heads ofdemons atop Persian wrestlersengaged in a surreal battle. Delicateyet inflammatory bursts of paint seemto flash in the distance as if the lightsof a distant battle are the onlyillumination.

In his first exhibition in Dubai, AhmadAmin Nazar presents a collection ofkinetic paintings that evoke a traditionin chaos. A master of line and form,the artist taught private drawingclasses to a new generation ofIranian artists in the early 1990s, withRokni and Ramin Haerizadeh aspupils who both cite the artist to be ofmajor influence.

Ahmad Amin Nazar, Untitled 11, 2009, Acrylic on paper, 110 x 150 cm.

Ahmad Amin-nazar, Untitled 5, ink on paper, 110x150 cm, 2009.

It’s as if we are watching the Persianminiature being dismantled beforeour eyes. The flat plane paintingsoften used to illustrate scenes fromthe Shahnameh (Book of Kings) —the epic poem that sits at the heart ofPersian culture — are here madethree-dimensional. Amin Nazar, alsoa skilled miniature painter, hasintroduced gravity into thistwo-dimensional world. The effect isdisorientating, figures who oncedanced appear to tumble like bodiescaught in the midst of an explosion.

The artist incorporates charactersand figures from the Shahnamehsuch as Zahhak, notorious for theserpents that grow from his shouldersand are only satisfied by feeding onthe brains of young boys. Zahhakappears repeatedly as a motifthroughout these works as anominous, blasted presence watchingover the destruction around him. Thisfigure — symbolic of a destructiveand nihilistic sacrifice of youth —immediately draws parallels with thesituation in Iran and the violenceassociated with the 2009 protests.Amin Nazar painted these worksaround the time of the protests andseems to point towards a dark andforeboding reality: somethingapocalyptic looms over these scenesamid a tumult of black paint. Thecollection builds to a vast, 10m widepiece where each character seems tofade into such an abyss.

Identifying the constant battlebetween good and evil that underpinsPersian thought right back topre-Islamic times, he cites SedeghHedayat, one of Iran’s most notedmodern writers who concernedhimself with this same duality, as acounterpart. Hedayat appears in the

Ahmad Amin-nazar, Untitled 13, Acrylic on paper, 110 x 150 cm, 2009.

artist’s works, clad in a sharp suit anda confused expression, and thewriter’s own Kafka-like prose seemsto have some bearing on AminNazar’s narrative paintings.

Amin Nazar offers insight into ageneration that preceded Iran’s newwave of artists. As one of the first tobring the tradition of Persianminiature painting into thedestabilising sphere of Westernthought, he captures a new vision ofthe miniature. Through powerfullywrought bodies caught in a snapshotof conflict, or mythological figuresengaged with absurd symbols ofmodernity — a laptop, a mobilephone — we sense an artiststruggling to equate a rich traditionwith a volatile present.

Ahmad Amin-nazar,Untitled 3, ink on

paper, 110x150 cm,2009.