Statement:

SARAI Gallery (SARADIPOUR) is pleased to present In Between, Moslem Khezri's latest series of paintings and drawings at SARAI Gallery. In Between opens on December 2 and it will continue to run until December 16, 2022.

Centered on the critical theme and globally growing phenomenon of human immigration, "In Between" depicts various scenes from the cold, giant interiors of Iran's major international airport. While airports, in general, may stand for a wide range of human experiences from the bitterness of saying goodbye to the wonder and joy of being on the threshold of new adventures, to the tedious, bland, and rushed arrays of business trips for those who often travel for work, In Between's vast halls have, for decades, been the final station for those who'd rather stay but whose life conditions and prospects of futures urge them to leave their home, often for good.///

Rendered with Khezri's signature sensitivity and virtuosity, each work offers a frozen fragment of memory that builds the intermediary experience between 'being there' and 'being gone', be it for the passengers or those who have come to bid them farewell:figures tenderly embracing each other, faces gazing from behind the glass partitions, rows of empty chairs, the pale light reflected from the frigid floors.Moslem Khezri's subtle, intimate tableaux channel universal emotions and his technique involving layers of thinned paint - applied equally in watercolorsand oil paint - capture the fluidity of time and the evanescence of these tender, in-between states.