Golnaz Hosseini

Golnaz Hosseini (born in 1990, Tehran, Iran) lives and works in Basel, Switzerland. Following her master thesis in 2017, her research has started on the notion of “representation”, questioning the meaning of representation in painting. Her notion of visual representation is related to the visual analysis and visual discovery of an image, therefore the notion does not limit only on the meaning of figuration or resemblance, but as a human act, the effort to understand (perceive), organize and bring the reality back by the medium of painting. This research includes both schools of “perceptual” (psychological) and “cognitive” (conventional) approaches (mostly based on the ideas of Nelson Goodman) , to the meaning of visual representation. Since then, her practice has mainly shaped around this question and through that she questions the border and limits of the linguistic and the visual understanding of a painting. When and how do they interfere each others fields? What are the roles and powers of symbols and signs in our linguistic and visual understanding? On the process of finding her path through this question, her main focuse is on the pictorial language or the classifed visual representation that she uses for her paintings. In her recent works, moving between abstraction and figuration, she is continuously practicing the struggle of painting itself and creating an image through painting on one side and the engament of communication with the viewer. This contains examinations on the medium and attitude of paint both material (pigment) and expressional (color), meaning of layering and trace making, the effect of the visual illusion and the role of language in visual understanding. To put it in other words, it is the infinate struggle of the duality of “intensity” and “intension".