Statement:

“Hiding, undoing, covering, erasing, vandalizing, I recently realized that these are the primary ways I know how to paint. And maybe that’s how all the different works I make are connected.”

—Kimiya Mirzaei, Spring 2025///

O Gallery presents the first solo exhibition of Kimiya Mirzaei (b. 1998 Tehran), whose process-driven practice offers a compelling counterpoint to the results-oriented rhythms of contemporary life.

Her work foregrounds the act of making itself, through a mechanical yet handcrafted process that embraces the possibilities of material transformation over time.

The works on display continue her early practice, which began in 2021. She finds interest in paintings she encounters online and through engaging with their framed details that are reformed into abstract pieces she draws her inspiration.

It is not always clear which parts of the paintings are driven by chance and which by choice but, in each piece the artist takes a distinct path. Her approach generally follows two recurring processes.

In one, she begins by covering the surface with scraps available in her studio, then sprays paint over it, allowing areas of bright, sharp white to emerge perhaps to cover them later in the manners she describes as her ways of painting.

In the other, she engages in a more confrontational process with the surface—usually paper—applying color only to scrape it away, peeling back layers of paint and paper. She describes these processes as the endless battles she is constantly trying to overcome.

Through these evolving processes, Mirzaei explores a range of visual and emotional possibilities, emphasizing the role of uncertainty, repetition and the unpredictable unfolding of the creative act.

Her work invites viewers into a space where meaning is not fixed but continually shaped by the process of making itself.