Nebulous Rings, A Khosro Berahmandi Solo Exhibition At Queen Gallery

Eccentric Montreal-artist Khosro Berahmandi has solo painting exhibition at Queen Gallery in Toronto until October 26, 2010. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) October 14, 2010 - Toronto - For the first time, Khosro Berahmandi, the prolific and inspiring artist from Montreal, comes to Queen Gallery with a handful of his most recent works entitled Nebulous Rings. Queen Gallery is pleased to invite Torontonians to view Khosro's universe of infinite detail from which emerges a personal, extraordinary and captivating mythology. The exhibition runs from October 7 to October 26, 2010.

An artist of Iranian origin, Khosro has actively contributed to the cultural life of Montreal over the past 20 years with his extraordinary exhibitions, painting workshops as well as his active involvement within the Asian art community of Montreal through the Festival Accès Asie.

The artistic universe of Khosro is unique. A sensual and lurid imagery depicted through an earthly vision that provokes the rebirth of a primordial image hidden under layers of trivial pursuits. Inspired by Native American Art and the Indo-Iranian tradition of Miniature Painting, Khosro has created a singular and vivacious aesthetic that plunges the spectators into a mesmerizing labyrinth of enigmatic realms.

In Nebulous Rings, Khosro extends his artistic exploration of the notion of the detail as the means of an organic process towards the creation of the 'image'. These magnificent images trigger in the observer a fresh sense of 'seeing' which over shadows the usual modes of perception.

Widening the horizons of his creativity by recent research carried out at the New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art on two different periods in the Iranian Miniature Painting, illustrating Abul Qasim Ferdusi's Shahnameh: The Book off Kings, the Ilkhaniad period (1206-1353), and Shah Tahmasp Safavid period (1501-1722), Khosro engages towards the creation of an image that seeks to reveal itself with an infallible constancy of growing lines, challenging the onlooker's vision of details.

To this new series of paintings, Khosro Berahmandi adds two additional projects likely to extend his dialogue with the spectator. The first, Telluric Kiss, is a short art film created in collaboration with Jenn Doan (choreographer and dancer) and Shahin Parhami (filmmaker). The video excerpt to be presented constitutes the starting point for a dance project of a greater scale which takes its inspiration within the most recent works of the artist.

The second project is a new art book including splendid photographs of approximately thirty paintings of Khosro Berahmadi whose forms and colors are enriched by an inspiring text written by the poet and writer Bahman Sadighi. Entitled Oblivion and Silence, the book, published by MEKIC, will be launched during the opening. Thus, as a whole, the artist presents to us here the fruits of his original reflection and his unclassified work carried out throughout the last year with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which, recognizing the value of his artistic work awarded him a creative research grant for the year 2009.

Born in Tehran, Khoshro Berahmandi entered the world of art due to a political situation in Iran that forced him to leave the country. In the first lonely years of exile, he found comfort in painting and soon this interest turned into a vocation. After studying Fine Arts with Paterson Ewen, a Canadian painter who encouraged him to pursue painting, Khosro continued his academic formation at Concordia University in Montreal and at the University of Paris VIII. Since 1990, he contributes to the cultural life of Montreal's metropolitan city with his exhibitions and art courses as well as with his involvement with Festival Accès Asie.

Khosro has participated in more than thirty exhibitions in Europe, the United States and Canada. In Montreal, his works were exhibited numerous times and the most recent shows Argile Etincelante (MEKIC, Art Gallery 2008) and Re-emerge (MEKIC, Art Gallery, 2009) were great successes among the art lovers who appreciate the originality of his work. He has also collaborated with Iranian poets such as Yadola Royai, Hossein Sharang and Bahman Sadighi, accompanying his art with their poems. The most recent of these collaborations Le même à l'écart was published by MEKIC in March 2009.

At present, the artist is working on his two new book projects. The first, which gathers together seven Montreal poets around his works, will be published in the autumn of 2011 by Éditions du Noroît under the artistic direction of Paul Bélanger. The second, which also finds its inspiration in the art of Khosro Berahmandi, is a children story, written in English by Kyra Shaughessy and translated into French by Caroline Tabah, and will be published by the MEKIC in the spring of 2011.

Queen gallery is proud to be able to introduce within its walls the works of Khosro Berahmandi for the first time in Toronto, works that are rich in quality, whose intriguing magic sways sometimes towards lightness or amazement, sometimes towards darkness or extreme brittleness, making them interesting both for the expert as well as the amateur.

Closing reception: Saturday, October 23, from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Exhibition runs till October 23, 2010
Queen Gallery
382 Queen Street East Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 1T1
E-mail: info ( @ ) queengallery dot ca
Tel: (416) 361-6045 fax: (416) 955-0732

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