Babel Tower in Distance?
by Pouria Cheshmi
Captive? concrete, charcoal, acrylic, hemp rope and copper leaf on canvas, 70×50×10 cm, 2021
Temple? concrete, clay, acrylic and salt on canvas, 100×100 cm, 2022
Limbo concrete, acrylic and copper leaf on canvas, 70×50 cm, 2021
Babylon? concrete, clay, acrylic and silver leaf on canvas, 50×70 cm, 2021
Untitled, concrete and acrylic on canvas, 100×100 cm, 2022
Dreaming of Babylon, concrete and acrylic on canvas, 90×120 cm, 2022
Zarih? concrete, acrylic, silver leaf and copper leaf on canvas, 70×50 cm, 2021
ARTWORK DESCRIPTION
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”— Genesis 11
The abstract of the thought of Norwid, a Polish poet and painter of the 19th century, was that to describe something the poet must describe its environment instead of the thing itself; and assume the thing itself to be non-existent.
Surrounded by numerous under construction buildings, in a transition period that seems endless. While we are moving towards the future, the traces of the past appear more or less. Suspended between anything left from the past and a vague future. The environment that should promise a new future, more than hope contains a frightening obscurity.
Iranshahr Street, concrete and acrylic on canvas, 50×70 cm, 2021