Nasser Bakhshi

Nasser Bakhshi works in painting and “boxes”, which are his installations made out of old boxes found on the streets of Tabriz, Iran. He fills the boxes with both found and personal bricolage of memory, paintings and assemblages. Bakhshi belongs to the generation of Iranian artists born during the Iran-Iraq War. His practice revolves around the notion of collectivity amidst a continuously changing political landscape. With his boxes serving as a document to his, and more generally, human life, Bakhshi looks for an understanding of the present through the dialogue with the past. The artist’s paintings depict people that always look away. By hiding his subjects’ faces, Bakhshi challenges the notion of visibility while generating tension with his audience. His practice produces a feeling that one should not be looking, but at the same time, one cannot look away.