Mehdi Ghadyanloo: Spaces of Hope

About

On 2 March 2017, Howard Griffin Gallery will present Spaces Of Hope, the much anticipated exhibition of new paintings and installation by Iranian artist Mehdi Ghadyanloo. This exhibition is an important moment in the artist’s practice set against a backdrop of intense political upheaval on the global stage and is an ambitious offsite project for Ghadyanloo and Howard Griffin Gallery in the industrial 14,000 square foot Ambika P3 exhibition space in central London.

In a year that has seen political instability dominate the conversation, we have witnessed a notable shift away from our global, connected world towards an ever-increasing isolationism. 2016 passed with a sense of hopelessness, a feeling of historical determinacy that moves us ever closer to some unknown future. In both a literal and metaphorical sense, walls are being erected between ideologies, religions and countries, threatening to divide us. In this polarised world, art represents one of the only domains where the possibility of a collective imaginary of the future remains, offering a nuanced vision that resists the temptation to an oversimplification that feeds conflict.

The Spaces Of Hope body of work traces the development of Ghadyanloo’s interest in the phenomenology of space and is the latest gesture of this extraordinary artist. Ghadyanloo’s paintings focus on our bodily experience of spatiality, depth and perspective as the viewer is projected into an alternate plane of reality, a phenomenological state beyond territories or borders. Vast, empty landscapes dominated by architectural forms disorient the viewer, leaving them groundless. At times, buildings are reminiscent of contemporary Tehran: abstracted and displaced, yet familiar and lit from within with the warm glow of a possible future. However, Ghadyanloo seeks to undermine any identification with a recognisable reality. He paints an art of illusion to reveal truths, heightened realism to awaken us to aspects of our contemporary reality that we might otherwise deny.

Ghadyanloo has always challenged our perceptions with his his art be it through canvas, sculpture or his position as Iran’s foremost public artist. In his characteristic and highly evocative style, Ghadyanloo presents a complex abstraction of contemporary politics, giving us a nuanced vision of the world around us and the hope that we may yet find spaces of hope in the darkness.