Bitta Vakili (Iranian, B. 1973)

At first glance, Bita Vakili's work with its fine texture and intermingled color can look a picture of galaxies seconds after the world was created. It is about creation, birth and genesis in a general sense and at any scale of macro and micro. Birth that seems to be a sacred phenomenon, be it in a cosmic scale or birth of an animal, is depicted by fine outlines, hachure and bold colors.

There is a birth element and embryonic archetype entrenched in a mass of intermingled colors so that one can neither distinguish a distinctive human embryo nor can categorically deny the existence of any forms in her paintings at all, a kind of form that borders formlessness.

In Vakili's paintings, clouds appear to be traveling in somehow assuming shapes; they assume the forms that we imagine to take us away. When closely examined, they look calculated and methodical and this is where they diverge from modern art.