Spilling Horizon, a painting exhibition by Khorso Berahmandi

Aug. 9, 2011 - PRLog -- Queen Gallery is proud to invite Khosro Berahmandi back to Toronto this fall to show case his new work. Spilling Horizon is a series of thirty five new works that will be exhibited at Queen Gallery from September 15 to October 4, 2011. These works continue the novel, creative offspring of a pictorial space unique to this remarkable artist who, faithful to himself throughout the years, invites the visitor to explore the depths and marvels of his art. This new exhibition is thus an invitation for contemplation and discovery of his distinctive art, which can be recognized by all.
Prolific, precise, and meticulous, Khosro Berahmandi is a painter who does not leave anything to chance. He controls, organizes, and plans the smallest details of his artistic work. This year, once again, he links the brush with the pencil, acrylic, oil and metallic paint, and majestically orchestrates, tangles up and harmonizes the essential colors, forms and symbols around which his art is articulated. His artwork is a plastic universe of uncommon lyricism and refinement, testifying to his thoughtfulness and his perception of the world, a perception that has ceaselessly evolved but has also lingered, particularly in his more recent works, over the natural and inescapable consequence of life, namely, death.
Indeed, the artist uses and explores this topic as a unifying theme to create a series of paintings in which the philosophical musings of Anaxagore are echoed, for whom death was connected with the transformation of the matters because “Nothing is born nor does it perish, everything is assembled out of existing things and then dissolved.” Thus, Khosro Berahmandi deploys his artwork and invites us to follow him in this approach. On wooden painted panels, between variations of horizontal and vertical lines, between stylized circles and triangles, he deposits bodies which unite with the ground, return to it, disappear in it and, finally, become its first substance. For Berahmandi, “There is a physical exchange between the body and the earth which accommodates it. The body becomes the earth, the earth becomes the body.”

Khosro Berahmandi is originally from Iran, and has lived and worked in Montreal since 1990. Working in the field of visual arts for more than 25 years, he has participated in some thirty solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States and in Europe. A recipient of several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, he frequently involves himself in multidisciplinary artistic projects which explore the relation between his art and other forms of artistic expressions. Khosro Berahmandi collaborates on a regular basis with Iranian poets such as Yadola Royai, Hossein Sharang and Bahman Sadighi. His artwork accompanied their poems in Le même à l’écart (“The Same Apart”, 2009) as well as in several others collections of poetry. In 2010, Ketabe Iran Canada published his first art book, Oblivion and Silence, a retrospective of his works spanning from 2002 to 2010. Currently, Berahmandi is working on two new projects. The first, which brings together five poets from Montreal around his work, will be published in autumn 2011 by the Publishing house Noroît under the artistic direction of Paul Bélanger. The second project is a collaboration with filmmaker Florence So, who has been mandated to prepare an art film that will be shown under the new dome of the Society foe Arts and Technology.

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About the gallery: Queen Gallery presents the work of contemporary artists from Toronto and around the world. A recent addition to the Queen East community, our exhibitions are driven by a comparative exploration of art and culture in an interdisciplinary setting. Housed in a refurbished brownstone, this distinctive space is a forum where the boundaries of media are greeted, embraced and even challenged. We look to showcase a variety of talent of diverse heritage, aiming to provide the most original, contemporary voices to our collection. You are invited to apply to our gallery roster to grow with us as we navigate contemporary art from a novel perspective. Submissions may be made directly to us at info@queengallery.ca for our jury’s appraisal. Please contact us for details on the submission process. We are looking forward to having you join our gallery, no matter from where you are coming, or where you hope to be going. Come visit us!