Shirazeh Houshiary (Iranian, b. 1955)

Born in Iran in 1955, Shirazeh Houshiary moved at a young age to London where she completed her studies at the Chelsea School of Art and Design and later at the Cardiff College of Art. Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1994, she is recognised in the contemporary art scene today equally as a British and Iranian artist.
Working on various mediums, ranging from drawings to sculptures and animations, she uses delicate strokes of paint with a deliberately restricted colour palette that are reminiscent of the Persian tiles and manuscript illuminations that she grew up contemplating. Beyond the inspirations that arise from her homeland's cultural landscape, Houshiary's works reveal the impact that Minimalism and Conceptual art had on the artist while living in Europe.
The present painting is an intricate composition of delicately interwoven and whirling abstract motifs, through which the artist attempts to step outside the sphere of pure materiality and attain a state of spiritual transcendance. Inspired by Sufism and to a certain extent by the gestural painting of the New York school, Shirazeh Houshiary's works stand between form and formlessness and invite the viewer to enter a meditative state.